Month: November 2017

Went to drop off the keys to my mother’s now empty apartment at the rental office this afternoon. That sucked.

When my father died, social media wasn’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eye; the internet barely existed at all. And so as a form of therapy I’ve been writing a fair amount around here about how things went and how I’ve been feeling. And then it feels self-indulgent, and I want to apologize to you all for that. And then I feel like just writing the apology comes off as a fishing expedition. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t get that little hit of dopamine when one of you makes a nice comment on a post I’ve written. And then I feel guilty about that. All of that also sucks.

Still waiting for the good part.

I never know what’s going to trigger my emotions these days. Tonight I was watching one of the best Star Trek: Next Generation episodes, “The Offspring.” Data creates another android that he considers his child. In the end, the child, Lal, has a massive malfunction and dies. This perhaps understandably made me very emotional. And at the end, simply and beautifully, Lal says to Data something I would like to say to my own mother.

“Thank you for my life.”

Spent the afternoon cleaning out my mother’s apartment with my brothers, who are in town for this task. We got a lot done, but it was intense and draining. Shout out to my wonderful niece Anne who took endless loads of clothes and personal effects to the Agrace Hospice thrift store. I am so grateful for my amazing family as we help each other through this difficult process.

Have a family member you love who you haven’t spoken to in a while? Give them a call this weekend. It will be worth it.

Pop culture is really kicking my ass right now. My friend Paul and I recently saw “Victoria and Abdul,” which while I knew was about an elderly Queen Victoria, I did *not* know that a large portion of the end of the movie takes place at the dying Victoria’s bedside.

Then there was “The Meyerowitz Stories” on Netflix, where Dustin Hoffman’s character spends a chunk of the movie in a medically-induced coma, and the family speaks to grief counselors about what to say to their ostensibly dying father.