Anna H
9/15/09
In considering how I have personally come in contact with death and loss, or experienced grief, I must first acknowledge that I do not feel as though I have had much first-hand knowledge of what it is like to lose someone. I have been blessed to have not lost anyone immediately close to me, neither friend nor nuclear family member. That being said, however, it occurs to me that there are a number of different categories of loss which I tend not to consider to be “as important” somehow when applied to myself (though they are significant in the lives of others). When I allow myself to broaden my approach to loss- as I would with a client, though perhaps reticently for myself- I come to realize that there may be much for me to say on the topic which I can speak to personally.
My experiences with personal grief stem more from an awareness of people and opportunities I have not had. Some of my greatest losses are more concerned with the sense of lacking and wanting, rather than the traditional experiences of severed attachments due to death. I am the daughter of divorced parents, who separated when I was 4 years old; therefore, I have not had the experience of growing up in an intact family system, with the support and ready attention of both biological parents. While the divorce in and of itself might qualify as a major loss, in my mind the grief comes not so much from their separation as such, but from the losses that occur as a result of not having them together. I do not remember what it was to have my parents love one another, to model for me how a good working relationship functions, or for us to work as a happy family. These losses of what I could- perhaps feel I should- have had in my growing up are much more what I feel, as I was not old enough to know what things might have been like before my parents became unhappy with each other. Loneliness, and the awareness of missing good family relationships, has therefore been the most pervasive cause of grief in my life.
Beyond my parents, I have grown up with very few family ties: my parents each were isolated themselves from their extended and nuclear families, and, though for different reasons, the end result was that as their daughter, I know very little in the way of familial support or interaction. My mom’s mother died of breast cancer when I was two and my mother still grieves for her, but I do not know what it is like to feel that pain immediately, because I didn’t get the chance to know her; it is for that that I grieve. My father’s parents both lived in Florida and were very much out of regular contact with my Dad due to his strained relationship with them after they kicked him out of the house at age 18 for getting his first wife pregnant; they both died by the time I entered high school. My mother’s father, who died only this past April, was my last grandparent, but due to the falling out she as the result of much hurt and anger over my grandparent’s divorce and my grandfather’s marriage to the woman with whom he had an affair before that, I too lost the chance to develop a meaningful relationship with him. As much as family means to me in theory, my personal experiences with the ways in which families interact has been extremely curtailed by the actions of my parents, beginning long before I was even born. While I don’t often think of these things as losses per say- they are so far removed from my experiences that I again don’t know to miss them most of the time- when I allow myself to realize the extent of my family connections, I am aware that my ties with family beyond my mother, father and stepmother are only tenuous at best, and due to the nature of relationships damaged before I had a chance to experience them, I inherited the disconnection and isolation of my parents’ choices.
I can remember growing up in some ways very much alone, as both an only child, and the daughter of a single, working mother who out of necessity had to leave me at home, or with care-givers for extended periods of time from the age of 6 until I moved to college. That isolation seemed to follow me into my middle and high school experiences, and in reflecting back on my experiences as an adolescent, I am cognizant of a significant amount of time spent on my own, at home by myself. Because I had very little in the way of extended family connection, I have long been aware that my friends are in many ways my family of my own choosing, and as such the separation and drifting apart that occurs when life stages and physical closeness wane have been acutely and painfully felt on my part. This is my greatest source of fear for future loss, which in and of itself may play a part in my understanding of what it means to experience grief: after the initial pain of a loss has begun to subside, there still remains the fear that another, equally hurtful loss will follow the next time I engage in a close relationship or friendship, and either through loosing again and again, or else by never having the ability to find someone else, I will remain alone.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Grandfather's Legacy
Things I learned from from/about my grandfather, briefly.
There once was a man from Dundee
Who was fucking an ape in a tree.
The results were most horrid:
All ass and no forehead,
Three balls and a purple goatee!
(Apparently, the penchant for dirty jokes is a family heirloom- see more)
* While studying at Indiana University, he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity chapter there. He may have even been president of the chapter at one point in his college career.
* To this day, doctors and nurses in Cincinnati still remember and revere him as a highly respected and skilled thoracic surgeon, who put in the first pacemaker of the city.
* Graeter's Ice Cream- chocolate with butterscotch topping, if one must put a point on it- is one of life's enduring pleasures, no matter what age or level of awareness, one can always enjoy it.
* Even twenty years after her death, and probably more than thirty since they divorced, my grandfather still, in his way, loves and respects my grandmother.
* It is a horrible thing to lose touch with reality away from your home and loved ones, with the dread and sense that when you die, it will be someplace that smells of talc, piss, disinfectant, and cafeteria food. No amount of stars awarded for best care facility can block out such fears.
* No matter how much we fucked up, fucked over, or are fucked up by our family, there is nothing else that compares to their presences at the end of our days. They are, in spite of all, the best comfort and most potent solace for our souls when our lives have burned down and gutter into the last days of light.
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."- Redd Foxx
There once was a man from Dundee
Who was fucking an ape in a tree.
The results were most horrid:
All ass and no forehead,
Three balls and a purple goatee!
(Apparently, the penchant for dirty jokes is a family heirloom- see more)
* While studying at Indiana University, he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity chapter there. He may have even been president of the chapter at one point in his college career.
* To this day, doctors and nurses in Cincinnati still remember and revere him as a highly respected and skilled thoracic surgeon, who put in the first pacemaker of the city.
* Graeter's Ice Cream- chocolate with butterscotch topping, if one must put a point on it- is one of life's enduring pleasures, no matter what age or level of awareness, one can always enjoy it.
* Even twenty years after her death, and probably more than thirty since they divorced, my grandfather still, in his way, loves and respects my grandmother.
* It is a horrible thing to lose touch with reality away from your home and loved ones, with the dread and sense that when you die, it will be someplace that smells of talc, piss, disinfectant, and cafeteria food. No amount of stars awarded for best care facility can block out such fears.
* No matter how much we fucked up, fucked over, or are fucked up by our family, there is nothing else that compares to their presences at the end of our days. They are, in spite of all, the best comfort and most potent solace for our souls when our lives have burned down and gutter into the last days of light.
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."- Redd Foxx
Literary Geekery
NOTE- This has been moved from my old blog, in an effort to consolidate the hammer space that is the internets. Therefore bear in mind that it was written back in the first week of August. Thanks.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, and since my insomnia is still on hyperdrive from a combination of Karen and Stew's wedding (amazing, beautiful), talking with Brendan into late into the night (don't even know where to begin, that may be a whole journal for all i know -_~) and stress from paper/work/LSAT/depression/whatever the hell... regardless, it's 4am and i'm still awake for the fourth time this week.
So. On that cheery note, my irrepressable English Major is rearing its cultured, geeky, and sadly neglected head (don't you just hate when the head is neglected?)... *ahem* Anyway. Ramblings indeed. Away we go into Facebook-meme literary goodness!
These were inspired by my good, but too often neglected friend Kate GC [another point for D.C.] whose facebook writings are always a nudge in the much longed-for direction of helping keep me in mind of all the good things there are to read!
15 Books I want [need] to read:
1) The Rise of Theodor Roosevelt (need to finish it)
2) Moby Dick -Melville
3) Slaughter House Five -Vonnegut
4) Vanity Fair -Thackery
6) Divisadero -Ondaatje
7) Neverwhere -Gaiman
8) The Handmaid's Tale -Atwood
9) Kushiel's Mercy -Carey
10) Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy -Worden
11) The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Ed. (need to read revised edition)
12) East of Eden -Steinbeck
13) The Stranger -Camus
14) A Light in August -Faulkner
15) The Divine Comedy -Dante (again, need to finish it)
15 Literary characters I cannot help but love:
1) Almanzo, Farmer Boy -Wilder
2) Phedre, The Kushiel cycle -Carey
3) Viola, 12th Night -Shakespeare
4) Iago, Othello -Shakespeare
5) Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet -Shakespeare
6) Jane, Jane Eyre -Bronte, C.
7) Cal/Callie, Middlesex -Eugenidies
8) Gawain, Aurtherian tales/ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
9) The Wife of Bathe, The Canturbury Tales -Chaucer
10) Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land -Heinlein
11) Maria, 11 Minutes -Coelho
12) Anita Blake, Bloody Bones -Hamilton
13) The Monster, Frankenstein -Shelley
14) O-Lan, The Good Earth -Buck
15) Peter -Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
And finally (likely not last, but at least for now), more proof of my literary geekery.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Counting bound editions (though granted they're not, strictly speaking, books): Shakespeare; strictly speaking books: maybe Margaret Atwood, maybe Laurel K. Hamilton :p.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Lord of the Rings and Paradise Lost.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Yes, actually, it does.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well it wouldn't be much of a secret if I wrote it here, now would it? For [the blog's] sake, however, we'll go with Phedra, from the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon)?
Probably 12th Night, Jane Eyre, or The Odyssey.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Anne of Green Gables.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
*grimace* Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Jamison. It's not actually a "bad" book whatsoever, just incredibly difficult to read for emotional reasons.
[For more information as two why I have such a hard time with this book, see the PaperRave essay I wrote on it.]
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Middlesex.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Twilight! *muahahaha*.... Um, no. Actually, Paradise Lost, if they haven't already.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I have no idea, as most of my favorite novelists are already dead...perhaps Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Maybe Kushiel's Dart, though it would likely get sadly watered down and mutilated.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Book of Genesis- what a terrible idea (I can just picture the CG effects now >_<).
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Well, I once had this dream that Harry Potter got naked then went nuts with a bunch of horses... oh wait, that was Equus. [rimshot].
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Low brow...hm, probably some trashy romance novel, preferably one including vampires or the 17th century ^_^.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Just books, Night Falls Fast; in terms of literature, The Sound and The Fury, by William Faulkner, or maybe Night, by Elie Wiesel.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Toss up between Henry VI, part II, and A Winter's Tale.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I honestly haven't read enough of either to say definitively, but perhaps the French. [That being said, if you're interested in a non-headliner title for Russian novels, I recommend Ivan Turgenev's Father's and Son's. Hah- literature pretension re-established.]
18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't done either.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Again, haven't read either- not quite my style of author, I suspect, although I could be persuaded to try.
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Oooh. Tough call- Shakespeare for height of verse, Milton for depth of verse, Chaucer for humanity of verse.
21) Austen or Eliot?
I suppose Austen, though I honestly prefer the Brontes over either.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Maybe modern literature (1940s to 1980s), although I'm surprisingly unversed in late 18th/19th century women writers.
23) What is your favorite novel?
Paradise Lost, Kushiel's Dart, 11 Minutes, Stranger in a Strange Land.
24) Play?
Long Day's Journey into Night, 12th Night, The Crucible, The Laramie Project.
25) Poem?
Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare, Every Day You Play by Neruda, To Autumn by Keats.
26) Essay?
How Not to Succeed in Law School, by James D. Gordon III, A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift.
27) Short story?
Barn Burning, by William Faulkner.
28) Work of nonfiction?
SM 101, a Realistic Introduction, by Jay Wiseman.
29) Who is your favorite writer?
Likely Shakespeare, if I have to pick just one. Novelist- maybe Louise Erdich?
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown? Nora Roberts? You decide!
31) What is your desert island book?
Norton Shakespeare Anthology or the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard version of the Bible.
32) And... what are you reading right now?
Finishing The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (eventually.. i swear i will!) and Eros, the Bittersweet.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, and since my insomnia is still on hyperdrive from a combination of Karen and Stew's wedding (amazing, beautiful), talking with Brendan into late into the night (don't even know where to begin, that may be a whole journal for all i know -_~) and stress from paper/work/LSAT/depression/whatever the hell... regardless, it's 4am and i'm still awake for the fourth time this week.
So. On that cheery note, my irrepressable English Major is rearing its cultured, geeky, and sadly neglected head (don't you just hate when the head is neglected?)... *ahem* Anyway. Ramblings indeed. Away we go into Facebook-meme literary goodness!
These were inspired by my good, but too often neglected friend Kate GC [another point for D.C.] whose facebook writings are always a nudge in the much longed-for direction of helping keep me in mind of all the good things there are to read!
15 Books I want [need] to read:
1) The Rise of Theodor Roosevelt (need to finish it)
2) Moby Dick -Melville
3) Slaughter House Five -Vonnegut
4) Vanity Fair -Thackery
6) Divisadero -Ondaatje
7) Neverwhere -Gaiman
8) The Handmaid's Tale -Atwood
9) Kushiel's Mercy -Carey
10) Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy -Worden
11) The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Ed. (need to read revised edition)
12) East of Eden -Steinbeck
13) The Stranger -Camus
14) A Light in August -Faulkner
15) The Divine Comedy -Dante (again, need to finish it)
15 Literary characters I cannot help but love:
1) Almanzo, Farmer Boy -Wilder
2) Phedre, The Kushiel cycle -Carey
3) Viola, 12th Night -Shakespeare
4) Iago, Othello -Shakespeare
5) Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet -Shakespeare
6) Jane, Jane Eyre -Bronte, C.
7) Cal/Callie, Middlesex -Eugenidies
8) Gawain, Aurtherian tales/ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
9) The Wife of Bathe, The Canturbury Tales -Chaucer
10) Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land -Heinlein
11) Maria, 11 Minutes -Coelho
12) Anita Blake, Bloody Bones -Hamilton
13) The Monster, Frankenstein -Shelley
14) O-Lan, The Good Earth -Buck
15) Peter -Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
And finally (likely not last, but at least for now), more proof of my literary geekery.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Counting bound editions (though granted they're not, strictly speaking, books): Shakespeare; strictly speaking books: maybe Margaret Atwood, maybe Laurel K. Hamilton :p.
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Lord of the Rings and Paradise Lost.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Yes, actually, it does.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Well it wouldn't be much of a secret if I wrote it here, now would it? For [the blog's] sake, however, we'll go with Phedra, from the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon)?
Probably 12th Night, Jane Eyre, or The Odyssey.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Anne of Green Gables.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
*grimace* Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Jamison. It's not actually a "bad" book whatsoever, just incredibly difficult to read for emotional reasons.
[For more information as two why I have such a hard time with this book, see the PaperRave essay I wrote on it.]
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Middlesex.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Twilight! *muahahaha*.... Um, no. Actually, Paradise Lost, if they haven't already.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I have no idea, as most of my favorite novelists are already dead...perhaps Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Maybe Kushiel's Dart, though it would likely get sadly watered down and mutilated.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Book of Genesis- what a terrible idea (I can just picture the CG effects now >_<).
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Well, I once had this dream that Harry Potter got naked then went nuts with a bunch of horses... oh wait, that was Equus. [rimshot].
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Low brow...hm, probably some trashy romance novel, preferably one including vampires or the 17th century ^_^.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Just books, Night Falls Fast; in terms of literature, The Sound and The Fury, by William Faulkner, or maybe Night, by Elie Wiesel.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Toss up between Henry VI, part II, and A Winter's Tale.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I honestly haven't read enough of either to say definitively, but perhaps the French. [That being said, if you're interested in a non-headliner title for Russian novels, I recommend Ivan Turgenev's Father's and Son's. Hah- literature pretension re-established.]
18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't done either.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Again, haven't read either- not quite my style of author, I suspect, although I could be persuaded to try.
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Oooh. Tough call- Shakespeare for height of verse, Milton for depth of verse, Chaucer for humanity of verse.
21) Austen or Eliot?
I suppose Austen, though I honestly prefer the Brontes over either.
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Maybe modern literature (1940s to 1980s), although I'm surprisingly unversed in late 18th/19th century women writers.
23) What is your favorite novel?
Paradise Lost, Kushiel's Dart, 11 Minutes, Stranger in a Strange Land.
24) Play?
Long Day's Journey into Night, 12th Night, The Crucible, The Laramie Project.
25) Poem?
Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare, Every Day You Play by Neruda, To Autumn by Keats.
26) Essay?
How Not to Succeed in Law School, by James D. Gordon III, A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift.
27) Short story?
Barn Burning, by William Faulkner.
28) Work of nonfiction?
SM 101, a Realistic Introduction, by Jay Wiseman.
29) Who is your favorite writer?
Likely Shakespeare, if I have to pick just one. Novelist- maybe Louise Erdich?
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Dan Brown? Nora Roberts? You decide!
31) What is your desert island book?
Norton Shakespeare Anthology or the Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard version of the Bible.
32) And... what are you reading right now?
Finishing The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (eventually.. i swear i will!) and Eros, the Bittersweet.
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