Posts Tagged ‘death’
February 2nd, 2013 | 
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Around 1981, my mother took a cooperative extension course near her home in Charlotte, NC; I don’t even know what the topic was. What my sisters and I DO recall, though, is that it had a profound, and, from our point of view, negative impact on her.
The message she received from the class was that she was a bad mother. She worked outside the home most of the time when we were growing up. She left her children Read the rest of this entry »
One of those year-in-review quizzes from Jaquandor.
Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Maybe I’ll make some this year. This past year felt as though, if I could keep my head above water, it was good.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not that I can recall.
Did anyone close to you die?
Read the rest of this entry »
I came home Friday night and realized I had forgotten my antibiotic pills at the office, which I was supposed to take every six hours. Worse, I couldn’t find my stinkin’ badge to get back into the building, even if I had returned to work. Reluctantly, I called a friend from work, and she picked me up, got me into the building, and helped me get my medicine.
Saturday, I went over to another friend’s house. I had been surprised to discover Read the rest of this entry »
I was looking at the situation all wrong. When Nora Ephron died last week, I was thinking about her top movie moments rather than her life. I was evaluating her films: liked Sleepless in Seattle, but You’ve Got Mail, not so much. Enjoyed Heartburn. InJulie and Julia: Julia-yes, Julie-eh. Silkwood I enjoyed, but I wouldn’t even watch Bewitched.
Then I read John Blumenthal’s piece Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | 
Tags: Andy Griffith, death, funeral, loss, Mark Evanier, movies, Nora Ephron, obit, television | 
4 Comments »
Mostly from here, because people seem to have no idea of the genesis of Memorial Day:
Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
A long weekend!
The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion Read the rest of this entry »
(Weird – I scheduled this particular post for this day a couple weeks ago, before vacation. Didn’t know I’d be writing so much about dead people this week.)
I still have a print address book; you know, the kind made of paper. And when someone dies, I never know when to erase that person’s name. It seems that doing so means they are REALLY dead. The only time I’m likely to drop someone is if the book falls apart, I buy a new one, then rewrite the names in the new book, but only the living.
It’s no easier for me in my electronic address book. Read the rest of this entry »
I realized that, while my mother’s death naturally made me very sad, and especially that “adult orphan” thing weirded me out, there were some things that mitigated the pain somewhat.
To recap: my “baby” sister called me at work on Friday, January 28 to tell me our mother, Gertrude Elizabeth (Trudy) Green, had gone to the ER with a severe headache. It was latter determined that she had had a “brain bleed”; I don’t think I understood that terminology until I got down to the hospital. What Mom had was a stroke; there are two kinds, one which constricts the blood, and the other, less common, but more problematic, where there’s too much blood.
I figured that I needed to go down by train because flying was too expensive. Read the rest of this entry »