I made it through Easter weekend!

It’s the Monday after Easter and…I made it through.  There’s been a lot of death and sickness going on among the people I care about, but I made it through this Easter weekend.

For those of you who don’t know, my mother passed away on a Good Friday.  She’d suffered with Multiple Sclerosis my entire life.  Her immune system was shot.  It was so busy destroying her nervous system, it couldn’t fight simple things like a cold or flu bug.  One day, my mother got sick with a cold, and ended up in the hospital ICU.  Her lungs shut down first, then everything else began to shut down as well.  After close to a month of being hooked up to machines, we had a family meeting.  It was time to allow my mother to die.  There’s more to this story, but the end result was that on a Good Friday in March, almost ten years ago, I signed the mountain of paperwork, the hospital took my mother off of life support, and 20 minutes later, she passed away.  I held her hand as she took her last breaths.

Cheery, right?  Unfortunately, death is a part of life.

Anyways, I did really well this year.  March was rough, but I reminded myself that we are now in April, and I got through this weekend, no tears.

I got a little writing done, though its been going slow.  Bah!  I also set up a Blogger account.   Yes, I can hardly keep up with this blog, so I REALLY don’t need another, but I got sick of Blogger being so fickle when I’ve tried to comment on my buddies posts.  If you already have a Blogger account, I’m:  http://julihoffman.blogspot.com/

I’ve been playing with GIMP.  I hear that books eventually need covers, and I’m determined to finish the ending of Book 1, but I still think that at home dentistry would be easier.  LOL  Some of the tutorials I’ve been playing with are pretty cool.  I’m in awe of the ideas people have.  Yes, I do have a talented buddy who does some AMAZING covers for  crazy reasonable prices, *cough* Joleene Naylor, but I’d like to a least TRY to create a…something.  I’m stubborn.  I am NOT an artist, but I have a heaping pile of stubbornness and I would LIKE to be able to say, “I did this, the whole thing!”  We shall see how that goes.

Playing with Gimp Tutorial

Take care, and have a great day!

Juli 

Ashes to Ashes-Conversations with My Friends

*Here’s another conversation, written with permission.  Despite his requests to the contrary, I have decided that it is best for everyone to keep my friend’s identity a secret.  This is the same friend I posted about on 11-5-11.  Do NOT feed him sweets!  If you do try to stalk him…err…friend him, I refuse to be responsible for the excess kitchen appliances and casserole dishes he might try to gift you with!  I got 3 casserole dishes, a set of glasses, a coffee maker, and a blender…but results may vary.

I was having a conversation with my friend and coworker about the deaths we’ve had in our family.  There seems to have been a lot of them over the past couple of years.  I lost my mother back in 2002.  My friend has lost both of his parents around the same time.  Despite the less than cheery topic, we both have a knack for finding humor in tragedy.  I suppose you could call it a coping mechanism.  We also enjoy stomping through cemeteries and taking photos of old headstones and statues, especially ones from the 1800s.  We’re weird that way. 

 The topic came up concerning cremation verses a traditional burial.  Lately, cremation has been the “popular” option in our family, due to the costs associated with a traditional funeral, but even that’s getting more expensive.  When my grandmother passed away in September, the family thought it would be best to have her cremated.  My stepmother had some severe health issues at the time.  We were able to get together as a family in October for my grandmother’s memorial service.

My friend asked, “So, are they going to bury her ashes, or is a family member keeping them?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered.  “My great-uncle has most of the family at his place.”  I didn’t bother telling him that they’re kept in his closet.  We’ve had that conversation many times before.  “I’m not sure if my aunt is keeping the ashes, or if she’s going to split them up, or what’s going to happen to them.  I only know that I don’t want them.” 

Even though I’m a practical person, I find the whole concept of holding onto a dead loved one’s ashes a tad creepy, but that’s just me.  I’ve told my hubby numerous times that if I go first, he’s not to stick me on the mantle or in the closet.  I don’t care what he does with them.  I just don’t want my ashes hanging around.  Of course, he likes to remind me that he does plan on fishing out the titanium plates from the rest of my ashes, before dumping me someplace.  I have two titanium plates in my arm plus the screws holding them in place.  He likes to tell me that if I die first, he’s going to stick them in a can or a jar, and make castanets out of them.  He thinks they’d sound tingly when rattled.  Strangely, I do NOT find this creepy.  I’m very OK with this compromise.  As long as he doesn’t hold onto my ashes, he can keep the plates and the screws. 

My friend continued on, “I remember when my father died.  My sister and I decided to have our dad cremated.  I remember when it was time to pick up his ashes,” he said solemnly.  “They handed me a small cardboard box, and inside was a bag with the ashes of my father.  And all I could think of is one thing…”

I nodded my head, thinking of my own experiences with death.

“We just paid $7,000 and all we get is a Ziploc bag?”

I tried my best not to giggle.

“Juli!  They gave us Dad in a bag!  Dad in a bag!  We paid $7,000 and that’s all that we got.  Dad in a bag.  We didn’t even get a pretty container.  We got Dad in a bag!”

OK, this is the part where I struggled to maintain a shred of decorum.  It didn’t work.

“And do you know what the worst part was?  Do you know?”

I shook my head.  I had NO clue, but I was about to have a fit of giggles.

“He wasn’t even in a REAL Ziploc bag, you know, the good kind.  He was in one of those fake Ziplocs.  Can you believe it?  You pay HOW much money and you don’t even get the REAL brand bags.”

At this point, death or not, tragedy or no tragedy…I lost it.  Death had never been so funny.

Then he added, “And because they didn’t use the REAL Ziploc bags, I was afraid we’d lose him in the car on the ride home.  He wasn’t even ground up that good.  There were chunks of Dad still in there.  What if one of them had broke through the cheep bag.  Wouldn’t that have been horrible?  We’d have to vacuum him up!”

I nodded, laughing so hard, I thought I might pee.

“And I remember thinking that things could have gone so differently.  I had the GOOD kind at home, the ones with the tab that you slide.  Things could have gone SO much better.”

I was coughing and laughing at this point.  I could hardly breathe.  Meanwhile, my buddy continues our conversation as if everything’s perfectly normal.

“There’s a lesson to be learned here, Juli.  Next time you have a death in the family, and you decide that they should be cremated, make sure you bring bags from home with you.”

Enough said!

And on that note…have a great weekend!

Juli

PS When I mentioned posting this story on my blog, he reminded me again that he’s here to teach!  He told me he thought about being a teacher, then he remembered that he hates kids, so this is probably better. 

My Grandmother, Eleanor E (Wilson) Fierro passed away this afternoon.

(Pictured right to left.) My grandmother: Eleanor E (Wilson) Fierro, her daughter/my aunt: Kay Randall, and her son/my father Thomas Brown.

 

This afternoon, my Gramanor passed way.  We all knew her death was coming.  I believe she was eighty-nine years young.  She spoke with a minister last week, made her peace, and slipped quietly away in her sleep.  She was loved by many, and will be missed.

A Celebration of Life. These Photos were taken on 6-11-2011.

Staycation #1 of 2011 has been busy! 

These photos were taken on Saturday, during a memorial picnic for my friend’s husband who passed away a few months back.  Despite the circumstances, I think everyone had a really nice time.  Good food, good music, the laughter of children, stories of his life, I think this is what he would have wanted.

Guest of Honor

 At the memorial service of my friend’s husband.  The sun peaked out while I was trying to capture this picture, giving her husband’s things a “halo effect”.

Putting my friend's husband's ashes to rest.

An iris near the water's edge.

Random Photos taken at the picnic.  It kept looking like it might rain, but it didn’t. 

Feather near the water.

Pink Peony

White Peony

Yellow Flowers

Pink Flowers

The Lake

 In rememberance of a man who loved family and friends, motorcycles, fishing, and nature.

JH

 

Silas and Ann Calley, my Great-Grandparents

My Great Grandparents Silas and Ann Calley (late 1800's-early 1900's)

 

Yesterday was a bittersweet day for me.  I went to a memorial for a friend’s husband that past away a few months ago.  It was a celebration of his life.  Later, the hubby, our son, and I decided to continue with this theme, and stopped by my Grandma’s house, my mom’s mother.  She’s 88 years young, is still able to drive a car, and gets sassier every time I see her. 

 

Like most grandparents, she likes to give away little gifts, hand cream, new potholders, etc.  However, on this particular visit, she brought out “the big guns,” the ultimate gift for a history-loving-picture-taker like myself.  She has started to make copies of all the rare family photos.  Yesterday she brought out one that I’d NEVER seen before, photos of her parents when they were in their late teens or early twenties.  My Grandma guessed that this photo was taken during the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, well before she was born, before life had aged them physically.  If you look carefully, you’ll see a locket under the handkerchief that’s pinned to my Great-Grandmother’s dress.  I recognized it as soon as I saw the picture.  That locket went to my Grandmother, to my Mother, and finally to me.  It’s nothing fancy, but it has a history.

 

My Grandmother had a photo that’s been misplaced over the years.  It’s a picture of her cousin Becky in a Victorian looking dress.  This photo doesn’t just resemble me, most of my family actually thought it WAS me, dressed up to look old fashioned.  It was spooky to see a woman who looked exactly like me, born approximately one hundred years ago.  Now, looking at this photo, I see more pieces of my personal puzzle.  I see that I resemble my Great-Grandmother.  We have the same nose, the same round face.  My Grandmother told me that we’d look even more alike if she’d smiled for the picture.  Ironically, she told me it was rare to ever see them NOT smiling.

 

This morning, I woke up early.  The sun was rising.  I brought out this new-to-me photo.  I wondered about the couple who were looking back at me as though through time.  I get a peculiar feeling when I look at their faces.  These people are related to me by blood.  I have memories of my Great-Grandfather.  He died a week before his hundredth birthday, but I have no memories of my Great-Grandmother.  I wonder about her.  I know stories about her life, but in my mind, I’d always imagined this aging woman, never a young lady.  I’d never been able to put myself in her shoes before, to imagine what it was like to be her. 

 

Looking at the photographs of my ancestors has been wonderfully therapeutic.  Seeing the faces that have come before me, and seeing my son, who will hopefully go on after me, I feel strangely secure.  Life finds a way.

JH