* this morning was the funeral of a fellow congregant. Her family requested "no meal," and I admit, I've helped with funeral lunches so many times that it almost feels incomplete to have one without a meal where I have to work.
I mean, I'm sad, but also....she had been unwell for a while so at least she's no longer suffering, and her family has closure. It must be hard to have someone linger with something for very long where you know they're unlikely to get better and could pass at any time.
I managed not to cry. Even when the person officiating read "Crossing the Bar," which I have heard at other, more-emotional funerals and so it always catches something in me and reawakens that grief.
(And, heh: I guess I do occasionally say the right thing; walking out afterward with a friend from church and she said it was hard for her because the man who sang had a voice reminiscent of her much-loved and long-dead husband, and he apparently ALSO got called on to sing at funerals, and I made the comment that unexpected things remind you of old griefs and open them back up, and she stopped and looked at me and said "thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear right now")
* Also, another small grief: a relative of mine (not giving much detail to protect their privacy, but I will say it is NOT my mom, she's the one who informed me after finding out herself) is having "memory issues" and may be starting with some form of dementia and I guess with having an aging family it's not unexpected but still it's sad.
* I ran across this poem, in of all places a silly tumblr account, and it struck me. I looked up the poet; he wrote it in January 2020 - so long before some of the current emergencies we've lived through. (though I admit reading it, the first thing I thought of was the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001):
Meditations in an Emergency, by Cameron Awkward-Rich
I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside. I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children all of them, break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair. There are no borders, only wind. Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart.
And yes, lots of things break my heart these days. And I want to, if not love the world, show it love, but it's so hard some days.
* speaking of Sept. 11, there was discussion on Bluesky of "is it okay to make jokes about it" and my feeling is very much not about the people who died (And there was a sub argument of "you can't claim to be hurt emotionally by it if you did not lose someone or watch it happen in person" and I think that's bunk, if you're an empathetic person you can feel horror and hurt from it. Just mention "The falling man" to me and I can feel my stomach curl up inside me because I can on some level imagine being in a situation where you have no choice other than one of two terrible ways to die*)
(*Kind of like the Lahaina fires - "get burned to death or risk drowning by jumping in the ocean" and I'd definitely have risked drowning if I were close enough to the ocean to get in)
I do think though maybe a serious look back and assessment of all the weird, jingoistic products that came out in that time - and how some people got TREATED - my dad's favorite restaurant in Illinois was run by Jordanian immigrants who were, yes, Muslim - and they experienced unpleasantness as a result despite not being "that kind" of Muslim (they were very secular) and also it's just dehumanizing to blame someone for an event just because they are vaguely the same culture (and not even REALLY, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are different) as the perpetrator).
But, like: "Freedom Fries" that kind of thing. And all the Christmas tree ornaments with like the twin towers on them. We really did kind of lose our reason for a little bit and looking back on it to me, it's amazing.
But joking about the people who died, no. (And someone else mentioned, "Well, in 20 years we will be making COVID jokes" and I very much hope we will NOT. (and for that matter: would we think Lahaina fire jokes were okay? I would hope not. And again: there were a very few folks online basically going "ha ha, rich folks losing vacation condos," totally not knowing that it was actually the working-class/middle class/ old downtown that burned, and at that, a lot of people died - they're saying 55 now, but there are a lot of missing people - and another thing that reminded me of Sept. 11, on the news people were showing photographs of missing friends and loved ones, and wow do I remember that from then.
I vaguely remember someone who worked at the "old" Patternworks (which was later sold and now is long-gone, but back then it was THE place for me to order yarn from) had a husband who was missing - the shop was, IIRC, based in Poughkeepsie in those days, but he apparently worked in NYC and I never heard if he was found or not.
And yes: every new grief reminds you of old ones, sometimes in surprising ways.
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