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2005-12-26 - 4:19 p.m. - I dreamed last night that my grandfather had died, that he was lying on the floor in the front room of his house and I was locked outside trying to get in to help. Christmas with my family was a good experience. I havn't spent Christmas with them in eight years, and my only regret is that my grandfather wasn't there to see us all in the same house again. Now that my mother and father are separated, she didn't show up to the father's-side-family event, and it didn't turn into a verbal sniping match. What a coincidence. I was a pallbearer at my grandfather's funeral, and I always expected something momentous to happen. It's one of those life experiences that you feel ought to result in something significant somehow. My grandfather was a heavy man. My profound thoughts on the way to the grave, other than grief, were of how much pain my hands were in from the rough pine handle and of how strange it was that the person leading the casket didn't try to steer us away from walking all over other gravestones. People want at least the illusion that the grave will remain untouched, and disturbing that illusion before the service has even started seems completely clueless. My grandmother gave all of us grandchildren -- all six of us and our significant others, most married, me not -- a thousand dollar certificate of deposit in memory of my grandfather. It's very appropriate. I don't know anyone else who's worked so hard to provide for so many people in their extended family, or been so successful at it. I want to be that kind of man by the time I die.
DLand |