apparently, when it rains it pours

Jan 29, 2007 19:38

Margo and i leave thursday to visit and interview at the university of rochester. irina (upperclassman from SRC) is going to be my student host.


my grandfather (dad's dad) passed away on thursday.
sometime between 9 and 10 dad called the house to tell us that he couldn't wake grandpa up. mum told him to call 911 (dad doesn't react well to emergencies) and we jumped in my car and drove over. when we got there, the police and an ambulance had arrived. apparently, when the EMTs got there, they pulled grandpa off the couch and tried to revive him. when it was definitively too late and they pronounced him dead, they left him sprawled out on the floor. he was still there when we arrived. i've never been at the scene of a death before; the amount of information that the officer on duty needed seemed excessive and irrelevant. was it really necessary for him to make my dad, aunt, and uncle search the house for a list of the medications grandpa was on? seeing as there was no evidence of anything aside from the death being of natural causes, couldn't they have picked up the body, or at least covered him up? (the living room of my grandparent's house is one of the first things you see when you enter or leave via the front door.)

friday i stayed home from work and we spent the day trying to get in touch with dad. (he was living with grandpa due to issues between him and mum). around 2ish margo and i went to the gym in an attempt to make the physical exhaustion match the emotional. 45 minutes of hardcore cardio later (margo only made it through 25. i was shocked by my relative endurance) we left and bought food for dinner.

friday night dad's priest friend came over for dinner. due to my relationship with religion in general, and catholicism specifically, i was very much afraid of the concept of trying to socialize with a priest. before dinner i listened to a voicemail from an admissions guy at the university of montana (my first choice program), they want me to go in for an interview. i have never felt so conflicted. the events of the previous night juxtaposed by the good news was terrible to deal with, but father blackwood was wonderfully non threatening (quite a nice guy actually) and the fish chowder was good, so i survived. my uncle bob came up from new york and joined us for dinner too.

i spent saturday going through bibles with dad to find readings for the mass. all in all, it was quite a pleasant experience. i've developed a new respect for the revised standard edition and a number of different passages (psalm 91 is beautiful as are 1corinthians chapter 13 and 2corinthians 4:7-18). i don't remember the specific cites, but we also found some nice passages in job and the book of wisdom (only found in catholic versions).

saturday night we went to my aunt's house for dinner to go through old photos for a poster. i think the thing that i dislike most about my father's family is the fact that they don't tell stories. i feel like i know more about my grandfather now than i did thursday morning. that seems to be the worst thing about death. as soon as someone dies, you hear all these wonderful stories about them and want to get to know them better, but it's too late. i saw my grandparent's wedding photos for the first time that night. until then, i had no idea how much in love they had been. we also found a ton of pictures of my dad. a ton of really funny looking pictures of dad. (now we know where margo and i get our dorkiness from.)

sunday morning we went back to my aunt's house for breakfast and to tape the photos on to the poster boards. margo and i did the taping while my parents, aunts, and uncles fought about whether hunter is too young to take part in the ceremony (he's 6 but was having a real hard time with grandpa's death) and whether we should add some sort of remembrance to the mass. (catholic funerals are very cold and non-personal--mum thought it would be nice to have someone say something personal. i agreed, but stayed out of the discussion.)

the calling hours were sunday afternoon. we stood in a line and received people who came to offer condolences. it was basically three hours of trying to remember where i knew people from.

then we went out for margaritas (because aunt terry rocks lots). jake came. it wasn't too bad aside from the fact that uncle bob and i were somehow isolated at the end of the table and i felt real bad due to my inability to come up with much to say. i've actually spent much of the last few days feeling bad for uncle bob. out of 6 kids, he's the only one who isn't married. (well, he was married, but it didn't last long. i guess she was kinda icky. mum described her as "hard to be with") after the funeral today, margo and i realized that everyone else had somewhere to go and someone to be with, but uncle bob is staying at grandpa's house with dad and dad's been here most of the time which means that there's potential for uncle bob to spend way too much time alone in that house.

this morning, i participated in a catholic service. i did the second reading (there are apparently two readings and a gospel in each mass: one reading from the old testament, one from the new, and the gospel is from, well, the gospel (matthew, mark, luke or john)). the passage i cited above from the second letter of paul to the corinthians. oddly enough it kinda felt good. i can't say that i believe in the father, son, or the holy spirit any more now than i did before, but i almost want to go back to church on a regular basis. there's something about the ritual of it. how some things never change. there were pieces of this morning's mass that i had memorized from when i was a kid. i was actually thrown for a loop when it was "together with benedict our pope" instead of john paul. everything else about the eucharistic bit was exactly as i had remembered it.
when grandma died about two and a half years ago, i almost choked on the host. i actually think there's an entry about how much i freaked out and how terrible i felt about it. this time, it just tasted familiar, not so much dry and choking.
having all of dad's church friends come to both the calling hours and the service this morning also makes me almost want to start going to church again. the people are all terrifically genuine. they're just nice, caring people. the type that hug you and mean it. one of the women who came to the wake actually remembered my name from the alpha class that dad made me go to about a year ago. i was shocked.

but now i can walk into a church and not panic or undergo spontaneous human combustion. i think i'm growing up.
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