"Grief ball" day

 there's a famous Twitter thread (that has been written up differently elsewhere) about grief. 

Basically, grief is like a ball in a box with a "pain" button, and as that ball rattles around, it hits the button. At first, the ball is big, and so the button gets hit all the time, but over time it shrinks, and only hits the button rarely - but that button still gets hit.

I think also with a big grief - perhaps one that's not entirely resolved because of circumstances* - that ball can get bigger again. That new griefs, which might otherwise be a minor grief, make the old grief ball blow back up big again.

(*I don't think I managed to get quite far enough with grieving my dad to be as prepared for the panemic as I might have been)

Today was one of those days.

I think I had mentioned Mr. B. dying - he had been unwell for a while (a host of chronic health problems), then he contracted pneumonia, then while he was in rehab, he got worse, and he told everyone he was done with hospitals and didn't want to fight any more.

In a way, that mirrors my dad's choice. My mom had asked him, when he started having breathing problems that day, if he wanted to go to the hospital, and his response was that he was done with hospitals, and not much more than a day later, he was gone. (I think maybe people sometimes know? And I think dying at home, if you knew it was going to happen, is preferable to dying in a hospital)

Today was his memorial service. I knew it was going to be kind of difficult. It's been a long week - I'm tired, I've dealt with all kinds of student problems with the technology, I've felt like I am merely a tech-support person and not a teacher any more. 

But also, just the memorial service was hard. This is yet another person who was "always there" in the past 20 years who is now gone. Mr. B. was one of the first people who welcome me here when I moved down here - I think he and his wife were the ones who gave me the tour of the church when I first visited it. 

He was an opinionated person and at times could be difficult. And when he criticized you, you knew you'd been criticized. And yet, I liked him. He was fair; he did not play favorites so it wasn't that he JUST criticized some people and let others have a pass. 

And like I said: he was just one of those "always there" people, and it's a little unsettling when you lose someone like that. 

And I think, just....he wasn't that much older than my dad was, physically, he was a bit similar to my dad (tall and heavy), he had some of the same opinionated qualities. And my dad's memorial service was about this same time last year. And so yeah, it did bring up the memories of losing my dad all over again, and that made it seem harder.

The one part that nearly got me and made me cry is when the singer (yes, but he was distanced from everyone and masked) sang "My Way" which wasn't in the bulletin, it was a last minute addition, but it was "very Mr. B." and it kind of caught me. 

Afterwards, there was a reception, and yeah, I was nervous - unmasked eating people clustered in the fellowship hall - but it seemed like most people kept their masks on EXCEPT when eating, and most people were okay at distancing* and I was able to stay distant from most people. (And I kept my mask on, except for the few minutes I was eating). And anyway? I'm getting to the point that you have to live your life A LITTLE and  taking a small risk of exposure (mostly older people,mostly masked, mostly the people around me are people I am pretty sure have been being careful) and anyway, I'm going to be mostly self-isolating for a while during break, so if I get it, I guess I don't pass it on. (I will watch carefully. If I show any symptoms I will just stay home. But I think it's unlikely, given that I was not within 6' of anyone for more than a minute or two, and I was masked the whole time I was close to people)

(* A few people were not - took their masks off to talk! - but I stayed really far away from them and like I said, I had a mask on. So hopefully I will be okay)

But yeah. This has been a brutal couple of years. I really hope bad things stop happening soon,because it seems like there has been an awful lot of them.