elainegrey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elainegrey) wrote2012-07-28 07:22 am
elainegrey) wrote2012-07-28 07:22 am
(no subject)
Not back yet, but in the privacy of the guest room at my parents'.
I haven't regretted coming on this trip, but i have wondered at my effectiveness: have i eased anything at all, even if it's simply by being someone who triggers in my parents a need to "behave"? I think so. I know Mom felt my care and presence as she wrote out her thoughts before the memorial service. I explained the Quaker understanding of accompaniment as she noted how she felt my presence.
I will treasure the two moments i felt of time collapsing during the memorial. When singing the last verse of four of the Navy Hymn (Eternal Father)[mp3 link], i felt an overwhelming connection to my grandfather as a young submariner under depth charges. My sense was that the people in the room were supporting not just the memory of the elderly man, but the young man fearing death. A short while later, while military honors were being rendered and the flag was being folded, i felt a connection with my grandmother and a sense of the times she had been at military funerals and felt the fear that she would someday be receiving a flag at such a ceremony.
Meanwhile, there was indignation on the part of my father and my mom's cousin at watching his second wife receive the flag: she had not sacrificed her time with her husband the way my grandmother had. I wonder, with that sense of fear passing to me over time, if my grandmother had fervently wished to never ever receive that flag.
It was pleasant to catch up with family, particularly the often-on-facebook wife of my mother's cousin. We are different in many ways (she posted this week supporting Chik Filet's political stance), and i've wondered how warmly she could accept me. Perhaps she wondered the same about me. It was good to feel the connection in person.
...
Health: I seem to have sprained the ring finger on my right hand. That's mildly annoying. I had tripped and fallen early in the month, just before leaving on vacation: the bruise or whatever injury to the tip of my left hand ring finger is also still aching with pressure or when i clench my hand. There was a brief moment when i was worried i was developing arthritis, but repeating the action that sprained my right hand finger demonstrated how i came to have that ache.
Mosquitoes (or fleas) ate my legs up one evening in Orlando, but other than these somewhat mechanical issues i am rather well. (Or, as well as usual, i think, as various bits of me clamor for attention.)
I haven't regretted coming on this trip, but i have wondered at my effectiveness: have i eased anything at all, even if it's simply by being someone who triggers in my parents a need to "behave"? I think so. I know Mom felt my care and presence as she wrote out her thoughts before the memorial service. I explained the Quaker understanding of accompaniment as she noted how she felt my presence.
I will treasure the two moments i felt of time collapsing during the memorial. When singing the last verse of four of the Navy Hymn (Eternal Father)[mp3 link], i felt an overwhelming connection to my grandfather as a young submariner under depth charges. My sense was that the people in the room were supporting not just the memory of the elderly man, but the young man fearing death. A short while later, while military honors were being rendered and the flag was being folded, i felt a connection with my grandmother and a sense of the times she had been at military funerals and felt the fear that she would someday be receiving a flag at such a ceremony.
Meanwhile, there was indignation on the part of my father and my mom's cousin at watching his second wife receive the flag: she had not sacrificed her time with her husband the way my grandmother had. I wonder, with that sense of fear passing to me over time, if my grandmother had fervently wished to never ever receive that flag.
It was pleasant to catch up with family, particularly the often-on-facebook wife of my mother's cousin. We are different in many ways (she posted this week supporting Chik Filet's political stance), and i've wondered how warmly she could accept me. Perhaps she wondered the same about me. It was good to feel the connection in person.
...
Health: I seem to have sprained the ring finger on my right hand. That's mildly annoying. I had tripped and fallen early in the month, just before leaving on vacation: the bruise or whatever injury to the tip of my left hand ring finger is also still aching with pressure or when i clench my hand. There was a brief moment when i was worried i was developing arthritis, but repeating the action that sprained my right hand finger demonstrated how i came to have that ache.
Mosquitoes (or fleas) ate my legs up one evening in Orlando, but other than these somewhat mechanical issues i am rather well. (Or, as well as usual, i think, as various bits of me clamor for attention.)