Random thoughts: Psyche, part one

 

 

Some of you might have noticed, that I’ve been MIA lately. There are several reasons for this; family death, diet failure and depression. Over the next few days I will post a three part series depicting my lack of enthusiasm lately.

 

 

Part one: Family death

 

 

In my relatively short life, I have been surrounded by death, just like most of you. I’ve lost my mom, two would be grandkids, my only brother, dad and countless friends.

 

 

Mom died in ’98 at the age of seventy six from Lymphoma. We had a year to spend the rest of her life together, while we prepared for her upcoming demise. I feel one of the most important things I did with her during that year, was look at and talk about every old black and white photo she had. I asked her questions like; who are they and when was this picture taken. That ended up being very good quality time, because we went through all of her memories one picture at a time. Of course spending time with her was the most important thing and that’s what we did.

 

 

The two abortions were in the early nineties. The first one my son, Jamie, knew about and was out voted so my first grandkid ended up in a cold empty metal pale on the floor. He wasn’t informed of the second one till the deed was done. We don’t talk about them anymore, but for me the difficulty of dealing with their deaths grows as I get older. I don’t think of them everyday or every month, but when I do it’s only sad thoughts that follow. They would be in their mid twenties and could have families of their own by now.

 

 

My brother, George, committed suicide in ’85, but that was a decision he made of his own accord. That lose was a bit easier to take, don’t get me wrong, death is never painless to anyone involved. He was old enough and drunk enough to end his life however he wanted. He didn’t need to consult with anyone on how to end his anguish. Selfish? Yes, but his business.

 

 

Dad died at Thanksgiving in 1975 from liver cancer. Dad drank himself to death, when the cancer hit his lungs it quickly ran through his body and death followed shortly afterward. For some reason I remember it happening on Thanksgiving Day, but it was actually on the 25th. Thanksgiving day that year was the 27th so the funeral was on Friday the 28th. Ever since then turkey day has never been a favorite holiday of mine. Hence bad memories on the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

 

There have been many other deaths in my life, but these few probably helped mold my psyche.

 

 

Note: I don’t agree with the stringent “Political Correctness” movement, so Happy Thanksgiving, Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year.