This is interesting.

Sat down to prepare tomorrow's Sunday school lesson this morning. The passage is Matthew 5:1-12.

Which, some of you will immediately recognize, contains the statement, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

***

I've more or less come to terms with Mr. B.'s death. (Because, really, what else can you do?). If, in fact, something did go very wrong during the surgery or aftercare where there was, I don't know, a period of time when oxygen wasn't getting to his brain or something, and he would never have recovered mental function to where he was before - or if he had remained totally dependent and in a rest home - I do not think he would have wanted that.

I think part of the frisson that gets to me about these is that I'm beginning to acknowledge that fact that (unless something goes very wrong*), there will come a day (please God, not for many, many years), when I'm making that long trip back to my parents' town to help bury one or the other of them.

(*I know people who have lost children - even adult children - and to a person, they say, "This is not how it is supposed to happen. The parent is never supposed to bury the child.")

***

I've decided to take today 'off' from work. (I still have Sunday school lesson to finish, and the cookies to bake, and the funeral/reception to attend). But I'm kind of worn down. I will say that I spent most of yesterday afternoon prepping the lecture material for PI on "the search for the structure of DNA" which is one of my favorite cellular-molecular type topics to teach (because there are so many cool experiments that were done to figure it out), and that helped keep my mind off things. I COULD be working on the next chapter, or on my OAS presentation. But my ability to work is just kind of run down right now. Maybe taking some time off will restore it, I hope. (I still have until the 11th to finish the OAS presentation, and it's probably 3/4 of the way done).

While I'm not exactly thinking about my own mortality - and as I said once before, and I still stand by it - I think I'm less troubled by the fact that I will someday depart this plane than I am by the fact that a lot of people I care about will do so before me - still, seeing a lot of deaths in a short span of time puts one in a philosophical mood.

I think about how when I was in my 20s, how desperate I was to Do Something Big with my life - make some discovery, or write a book, or do SOMETHING that people would remember me after I was gone for. (I was never really of a mindset to want to have children - which is a way many people can leave the world a better place, by raising a good citizen or a kind person - so I didn't think of that.)

When I got a little older, and realized that to make a Big Discovery you pretty much have to devote your entire life to that (I also realized early on that stuff like being an Olympic figure skater, or a concert pianist, or whatever, required a level of single-minded devotion I was not capable of). So I changed my focus slightly and thought, "Well, maybe I can count my life as a success if I make other people's lives better." Which is partly why I became a professor: it always fills me with joy when I hear of one of my students getting into (and better yet, succeeding at) med school or dental school or nursing school or vet school. Or someone going into the conservation field and doing good work. Or - as is beginning to happen, and it makes me happy even if it makes me feel a bit old - a few of my early students showing up as dentists or PAs or pharmacists. (The youngest associate at the dentist's I go to was one of my students. And the PA of my allergist was one of my students).

And of course, just simply being kind: there are a lot of little things a person can do that will then be remembered. There are things people did for me over 20 years ago (I still remember Dr. Tosney and her willingness to spend time talking with me about what to do next when I found out I was being "released" from my first graduate-school program). Sometimes you don't even know when you do something that's very important to another person. (Which is why I try to do little things that other people seem to need, even when I'm tired - because I know there were people there for me when I needed it.)

But I realized something else this go-round. You also need to take time to be happy. (And ironically, the Sunday school lesson is also on the two kinds of happiness: the contentment-sort of happiness that most people would recognize, and the "blessedness" sort of happiness where you learn to sort of surrender and accept that things happen for a reason, and that there are things you can't control). I found myself thinking yesterday afternoon, "I should just go online and order that yarn that I wanted, not worry about whether I will ever have time to knit it up, because it makes me happy." or "I shouldn't worry so much about the cookies I eat; the occasional Fudge Stripe is probably not going to materially shorten my life, and always saying "no" to the things I want to eat is a miserable way to live."

And while I didn't order the yarn (In fact, I think I am going to take the money I would have spent and donate it to the memorial fund in memory of the people instead) and I didn't eat all the cookies, I did realize: I do need time to do what I need to do, I do need to take time to relax and refresh myself and knit or sew and be happy. (It's been a long week, there have been several nights where I took a big stack of grading or other work home with me and just worked until it was time for bed). Maybe I need to ease up a little on my self-imposed insistence on having exams graded and returning them THE VERY NEXT CLASS DAY. Maybe I need to get better at recognizing that work fills the time allotted it, and block out more time for myself again. I find I'm working harder and longer hours now, after tenure and after becoming Full Professor, than I was when I was still bucking for tenure. And while I still need to be excellent at what I do...maybe I don't need to push quite so hard. As they say, no one ever says on their deathbed, "I wish I had spent more time at the office."

***

And finally, something silly and sweet and happy and grabbed from one of those I follow on Twitter: An Open Letter to Hello Kitty. Pull quote:

You are everywhere and whenever I think I might want something to do with Hello Kitty, then there you are! In airport gift shops, in malls, at drugstores, at nearly any conventional and convenient location, you too reside. Your overwhelming availability to be enjoyed and appreciated by the adoring Hello Kitty fans worldwide is further proof of my favorite thing about you, Hello Kitty, that thing being the way you give comfort and the way you are a constant and universal mark of something precious and whimsical and delightful and sweet. You are something loved by very small baby girls and very mature working women and everything in between and thereafter.

.

Because I find it sometimes very good to enjoy things that are sweet and simple and maybe a little childish. (Almost the same thing could be said about MLP:FiM, except the Ponies - at least, the animation-style Ponies - don't have wide availability, and those who love the Ponies are almost more likely to be men in their 20s ("bronies") than "very mature working women." (Though there's at least one "mature" - not sure I'd call myself "very mature" - working woman who loves both Hello Kitty and the Ponies.)

I made my bed with clean sheets last night, and put the vintage Hello Kitty pillowcase I got in an online swap on one of the pillows.

I have to admit, one of the things that intrigues me about Hello Kitty is her longevity. She's been around some 35 years, and I remember her being really popular when I was in the 5th grade (which would have been about 31 years ago). And she's still popular. Somehow, I find that comforting.