it's still hard

Ugh. Everything is very much right now, in between bad news out of Texas (Self, don't try to figure out "why," I know you are doing that because you feel like if you know "why" you might be able to avoid a situation that might be similar where you would be a victim and no, it's all random, and if it's your time it's just your TIME and you can't avoid it by staring into the abyss about it) and out of the Bahamas (though somehow natural disasters, as sad as they can be, are not baffling to me in the way human violence is).

And losing our minister, and wondering what's next for us - if there IS a "next" for the congregation*

(*A few years I'd have been hopeful and said "maybe we get really someone outstanding. Maybe we get someone even who has a nice unattached brother about my age they wind up introducing me to" but unrequited hope dies fairly quickly)

And then this afternoon, I got an e-mail back from Ed. Ed was one of my dad's grad students. I didn't realize how long-ago he was my dad's grad student - in the e-mail he commented "I remember seeing you in your crib in Morgantown," so he knew my dad for very nearly 50 years then. I knew Ed slightly; he came to ISU and did a teaching symposium one summer which I attended. And he shared a few other personal memories that wouldn't make sense in an obit sent out to the whole membership, but things like the fact that my dad sold his dad his used car (I think before we moved to Ohio) and things like that.


Anyway, he had volunteered to write an obituary for my dad for AIPG, one of the professional organizations they had both been a part of. Because of computer problems, he didn't get it done until this weekend. He sent a copy on to me for my approval, and I figured I had better read it to my mom over the phone for her approval. To be honest, I would have preferred to have sent it to her without preface or telling her, but I knew time was of the essence, so better for me to read it.

So I had to call her. Told her about the church thing briefly, and then read the obituary.

It was hard. I told myself I was not allowed to cry but I could feel my voice getting shaky as I read it. Not so much because of being reminded of my dad's death yet again, but because I'm realizing some of the stuff I totally took for granted about him - his strong sense of morals and ethics, his treatment of other people with kindness and respect - were really things that were kind of unusual; a number of the students he's had over the years talked about how he was willing to do things (like adjust scheduling to take their work schedules into account, inquiring after their families, helping out in non-academic ways - like with funding - when help was needed) that apparently some other profs weren't. That in many ways my dad was an unusually good man. And I realize now: I was lucky to experience that growing up in his household, but maybe the root of some of my regular disappointment with the human race was that I had people growing up I could look up to who were better than many of the humans out there.

And one thing did strike me, about how my dad was different from many, that I didn't think about before: how many of his grad students wound up becoming family friends. His student Barb, for example, her whole family was friends of ours; they had kids not that far off my brother and me in age, we used to go hiking together and they were the people we planted and harvested potatoes with (they had a lot of land and much of it was sandy in the way that is good for growing potatoes).



I managed to get through it without crying but after I signed off the call I did sit and cry all by myself for about ten minutes. It's okay, I'm sure. I'll be okay, eventually. I'm just not okay right now.



But I am seeking out soothing things. Before the e-mail-and-call I had been practicing piano and these past couple days, after I get through the "this is for this coming week's lesson" things, I have been pulling out my books of Philip Keveren hymn-tune arrangements and playing through some of them - so far, all ones I'd played before. Last night I went through "Softly and Tenderly" and "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

Today I ran through "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and I admit I did start crying midway through it - this is the Thomas A. Dorsey version, especially because I know the lyrics:

"Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall"

Oh man. Oh, yes. Maybe not so much tired and weak, but definitely "lone," (though I've also seen it given as "worn," and I think I more commonly sang it as that).

And yeah, cathartically I guess it helped. But I do wish some times I weren't so *alone* on Sunday afternoons, I don't think it's good for me. Or maybe I have to force myself to do something, like, drive somewhere and do something (though I admit I worry going too far afield; if something went wrong with my car I'd probably have problems getting home on a Sunday).

Or I need to go into my sewing room and sew. (I still could this late afternoon). Because otherwise I'm sitting here updating social media and feeling sad because everyone else is either off with family/napping/watching sports/I don't know what.

Anyway. One last thing - another attempt at trying to make myself feel better:

I ordered this a while back, it came....I don't remember exactly when, but a while back. It is the Fat Pony from "Hark, A Vagrant" (even if it does look also a little like the "Poo-brain Pony" that was the Ice King's disguise in an episode of "Adventure Time," and I wonder if there was a little crossover inspiration there).

Fat Pony was used to defeat a wizard......by depressing him when she ruined his garden by eating it. Which is just funny.

Fat Pony is nice to hug.....in fact, I may have found out about her from this Metafilter thread on adults who still have stuffed animals*


(*And yes yes I know, there are some adults who have stuffed toys for....ahem....adult purposes, and that kind of squicks me out, personally. My stuffed animals are basically surrogate housepets because I am never at home and have various furry-animal allergies. And they are comfort objects in much the same way they are a comfort object to a three-year-old).

But anyway. Fat Pony. Fat Pony is just funny looking and sometimes you want a funny looking animal to make you smile. And she is also chonky, and sometimes it's nice to have a chonky animal to hug (Hence the popularity of Mr. B, a very large cat that showed up at the Morris Animal Shelter)

I held off on naming her for a while but eventually gave in to the first impulse I had.....so her name is Sunset, after "Sunset Shimmer" (On My Little Pony, though we have thus far only v. briefly seen her as such - she was the "bad girl" who got exiled to the Human Dimension from Equestria**)

(** There's maybe ALMOST a Dante-themed fanfic in there, where Human Dimension is Hell, and Pony Dimension is Heaven and....well, I don't know what Purgatory would be, but....I know a lot of Pony fans who think of Equestria as a better and nicer AU than the timeline we're all mired in. Or, wait, no: maybe human dimension is Purgatory because presumably a person could be redeemed from it (I don't know the endgame on Sunset Shimmer but I know a lot of fans want to see her welcomed back in her pony form to Equestria before the show ends, and she does seem to have had quite a redemption story arc).

Anyway. Sunset the pony. (She is not a unicorn, I guess the MLP Sunset Shimmer was):

I admit I have kind of a wan smile in that photo, but at least it's bordering on being a smile.