Tuesday, June 18th 2002 - A Last Splash of Sherry
So, my grandmother, Nanie, passed away this past Sunday. My brother, Michael, just called my mother tonight to let her know the funeral will be tomorrow. Mom will make it; Holly and I won't. My cousin Peter, who lives in San Francisco, was told in time for him to fly out. I guess I couldn't have afforded to go anyway, but I'm sad not to get to go and say goodbye. The sad thing -- well, there's lots of sad things -- but one of them is that I won't get to go see all the relatives, some of them long lost, that will go to her funeral. I remember my Grandfather's funeral, and thinking (though I was just old enough to remember it at all) that there were lots of people in my family whom I'd never seen before. Nor have I seen or heard of them since. Holly and I sat around swapping stories about that side of the family for awhile tonight as sort of a tribute to Nanie. That side of the family is colorful, with our great-grandfather owning an apothecary shoppe next door to the Wright Brother's bicycle shop, and my father's assertion that Grandpa invented the car air conditioner for GM; the story of when Dayton flooded and the picture of Dad and Uncle Peter (who passed soon after I was born) rowing a canoe down David Street, the endless stories of ghosts, of talking to the dead and the time I swear I saw Tinkerbell, Nanie's Maine Coon cat, floating three feet above her genuine Persian rug. I'm also sad about the antiques that will go up for public auction, that she forgot to will out to each of us so that they'd still stay in the family. Yes, I would love to have her marble-top vanity, or Grandfather's hand-painted piano, or the Royal Coppenhagen china or the heirloom Xmas ornament or one, just one, of the hundreds of old dolls she'd collected over the years . . . , but even more heart-wrenching are the paintings of our Great-Grandparents (with eyes that follow you as you move through the room; we always thought they were possessed) and the boxes of photographs, including the one that looked just like me at the last time I saw it -- me in 1912, 8-years-old with pigtails and wearing a sailor dress. That was of my Aunt Dee, who in her later years drove her car so it straddled the middle line of the road, because she couldn't be bothered to do otherwise. So, we remembered our ancestors, our forebearers, as best we could. I dug out a description I wrote for Creative Writing in 1994 of her house, and Holly and I were both sad that it's already sold to pay doctor's bills, that we'll never explore the strange closets upstairs that were too scary to look in when we were kids. I already mourn the big trees and 5 unbroken acres that will be cut down and divided into plots for the hungry subdivisions bordering it on all sides. We'll drink a glass of sherry in her honor. We'll remember.	Exercise Log: Lifted weights last night - back and biceps & situps. Writing log: Wrote a new story about a witch - about 1700 words and shouldn't need much revision before it goes out. Current Publications: In the Shade of You nominated in the long poem category for the Rhysling and will be reprinted in the 2002 Rhysling Anthology! "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind I've been reading: Currently Reading: Report to the Men's Club and other stories by Carol Emshwiller The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick in Asimov's Oct/Nov 2001 These are for work: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine Skin Flutes & Velvet Gloves by Dr. Terri Hamilton
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