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4102022 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-04-10 12:23:58
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

I really don't want every post to be a miserable experience for people who choose to read the text, but I'm still on the ground floor of the death of my grandmother.  Dismantling her life is quite a process.  She had begun to hoard things pretty significantly in the last few years, on top of being regularly scammed & hiding it from everyone.  To the tune of many thousands of dollars.  There are so many extremely predatory companies out there that target old people who are desperate for some kind of hope.  Publisher's Clearinghouse, for example.  Of course what they do is perfectly legal.  It's just EXTREMELY predatory.  The actual scammers are almost better because they're just basic evil.  A company that's predatory is evil with a side order of banal officiousness.  

Even if you put aside all the weird things she had been relentlessly buying she also just had a lot of random stuff.  Things she had legitimate reason to have, like crafting materials, but also a library of crafting magazines she was going to read someday.  A day that never came.  

Then there are the piles and piles of sentimental things.  She kept every birthday card she ever got, thank you notes, anything you can think of.  She had almost every piece of homework the Teen ever brought home when she was very little.  I have the thank you note I sent her from my high school graduation sitting under my computer as I type this.  I remember writing that note.  I couldn't tell you anything about any of the others, but as soon as I saw it the memory of writing it was crystal clear in my head.  Sitting there trying to decide what to write that would make my grandparent laugh...  Sitting at the table, with my Pilot pen, in a blue flannel shirt.  

I can't let it go.  This bit of paper that was little more than trash to me 4 months ago is now something I can't bring myself to toss in the garbage.  As I hold it I'm suddenly back in 1994.  In our house in Garden, a month or so before my Uncle Jason died.  Unaware of how terrible a really tragic loss was.  Having never lost someone I loved unexpectedly.  My head is swimming from the relentless flood of memories.  

All of the things that led me to you all started right after I sent this card to my grandparents.  It's not connected to those events other than being from that time, but I had those memories set apart, and now they aren't.  

The family I lost, the girl I never got over, the job that traumatized me...  A decade or so of life that savaged me, and set me on the road to this moment, where I'm talking to you.  It almost seems preordained as I sit on the floor, in the managed disaster of my current life.  

I'm 18 years old and everything is possible, & 46 and the doors have shut, at the same time, with this folded bit of cardstock in my hand.  

What if I had been better, stronger?  What if I had been able to hold on to her?  Together we could have been amazing.  The comic would be the story of our struggles.  Or maybe it wouldn't exist at all.  We'd be working for Disney & stopping the downfall of Star Wars & Marvel...  

Then again, maybe I can still be amazing on my own. 

"For oft from the darkness of hearts and livesCome songs that brim with joy and light,As out of the gloom of the cypress groveThe mocking-bird sings at night."

Files

Comments

Cameron Buie

Grief takes as long as it takes, Jackie. Sometimes multiple decades will pass before we realize we haven't fully processed it (or never began to process it in the first place). If this is a place you feel okay putting it out in front of you so you can look at it, then as far as I'm concerned (for what little that may be worth to you and/or your other readers), keep it up!

James Tullis

My paternal grandmother was similar to yours. When she moved in with my aunt and the cousins started cleaning her house the first things that had to go were Sunday School projects she had received from her students. Some of the students were family but many were not. It all meant a lot to Grandma when she received it and when she looked at it later, but most of it was only personal for her. But seeing it also brought back my memories of Grandma and the things that made her special to everyone.

James Tullis

Take care of yourself but also take care of the good memories you have of your family. Don't let temporary problems tarnish eternal memories.

Insatiabear

This was a wistful, beautiful thing to read. Thank you for sharing it.... And don't ever think that you are anything but awesome.

Arc Frisch

The worth of a life is not merely judged by who takes the biggest spotlights and makes the most money. While those movers and shakers do have an effect, the stronger and more lasting effect is the people in your life. Their influence: kind or cruel, supportive or diminishing. Often a mix of all, shapes who we can all become in bigger, though more subtle, ways. I quit playing World of Warcraft recently, after playing for years. When I look back on it, it's not my extensive mount collection I remember. It's not even my spouse, the guy who got me into the game. It's one of my guild members, a guy about my age. Played since the earliest days. Scarab Lord, a title given to only one incredibly dedicated player per server like 17 years ago. Brilliant at the calculus and homework that goes into playing well at the highest levels of solo and group content. Rich beyond belief in ingame currencies, all earned himself by strategically playing the Auction House. Every right to be arrogant and elitist about his many accomplishments, and such an attitude is typical in that game. Somehow, he had pretty much no ego. He planted kindness. He helped others, including me, learn to play. Not necessarily personally, but by giving people the tools to succeed. I'm literally booting up the game again later today just to do him a favor and spend a bit of time with him. I am fundamentally a kinder, better person for his influence.

Hendrik Boom

That piece of cardboard is now important to you. How many of those things she kept were similarly important to her? Certainly some of them were, and others were things she just didn't get around to throwing out. Be generous to yourself and to her.

Steve R. Hastings

I have a tendency to keep things forever. If it's one piece of paper, go ahead and keep it. If you are really worried that you should keep something but equally you think you should get rid of it, maybe you can try taking a photo of it (or scanning it, if it's a paper). I wish you only the best. I don't know how to give any good advice, but I wish I knew how so I could give you some.

Perfesser Bear

My house is cluttered with the minutiae of my life, much as my parents' house and after my father's passing, my mother's condo. Dad's been gone 18 years, the first close relative I'd lost. I only had one living grandfather and a step-grandmother at my birth); I seldom saw either. He left a huge hole in my world; after he died I realized how little we really knew about him. Mom fought dementia since before Dad's illness. Eight years later, she was only awake a couple hours a day and I don't believe she even knew she was still alive. My sister is an RN and cared for her daily the last six trying years. As much as I hate to say it, the night my sister called me it was almost a relief. But they accumulated <i>stuff.</i> born in the mid-1920s, they grew up in the Great Depression. My Dad had little during that time and my Mom even less. They compensated by acquiring things when they could afford them and holding on to them. Now I find I'm guilty of the same habits. My house is bursting at the seams with antique cameras and guns, books of all sorts, computer equipment, tools, knives. Just today I bought a digital picture frame not because I needed it, but because it was $5 still sealed in the box. That's a terrible habit. I need to take it out of its box, load up a MicroSD card with pictures and hang it on the wall -- not let it sit in the back room forever. Evaluating our own lives and deciding what to keep and what to let go are among the hardest things we do as human beings. There are no right and wrong answers, only matters of degree. My thoughts are with you during this trying time, and I think that's true of all of your fans.

Jason

I'm about the same age as you, and I've been in a similar spot. I wish I could say something to make you feel better, but I'll hope you'll be all right.