Thursday, December 18, 2008

Another sunset


Kerry's maternal grandfather passed away early Monday morning. He was 86 years old and had been suffering from a variety of health problems, including renal failure requiring dialysis for several years. His wife died about 5 years ago and Papaw had been lost without her. At times he had dementia and during these times he was always looking for "Ruby". Now he has found her.

Dealing with this funeral was harder for me than it would have been normally because of my father's death last month. Since my Dad was cremated, there was no funeral or memorial service. His body was not at the funeral home when we had a gathering or visitation of family to remember him. I was ok with all of that totally, as I have thought of cremation for myself. But, going through Papaw's funeral,hearing the songs like "Go Rest High on that Mountain", and thinking of both men and their lives and struggles at the end with sickness and then ultimately their deaths, was more difficult than I was anticipating. Kerry's Mom seems to be doing ok. I know she is tired as she has been caring for her parents for a long time now. Kerry doesn't express any emotions and doesn't like to talk about how he feels, so I'm just having to assume he is ok.

I'm on my second night back at work. Think I'm coming down with a cold, so I'm dosing with Zicam, Vitamin C, and taking cold medicine to try to keep the aches and pains and symptoms away.

As far as art goes, I've not been doing much. I did get together and mail off an ephemera swap from our atc yahoo group. It was one I organized where we were to fill a large Priority mailer box with "stuff" from our stashes and swap out with a partner. Mine has already received hers and seemed to be happy with the contents. What was sad was that it didn't even make a dent in my collection of junk/supplies, lol! And those are pretty big boxes. I'm looking forward to receiving mine possibly today or tomorrow. Nothing like art surprises in the mail. I wanted to do some hand crafted items for Christmas gifts but that hasn't happened yet. I still hope to make some small things for the people at work, but then that is me, the eternal, but unrealistic optimist!

4 comments:

KRCampbellArt said...

Beautiful photo...and I wish I'd been in on that banner swap. those are wonderful!

Holly said...

Moms,
The funeral was harder for me than I had expected it to be as well. You know me, I am not the normal cryer. However, I think these two deaths in such a short time finally sank in with me.

That is such an awesome swap you organized! Great idea! How fun it would be to receive art stuff in the mail in which you had no idea what it would be ahead of time.

Hope you are having a good week at work so far.

Love you,
Holly

Jeanie said...

Oh, Jill -- I'm so very sorry to hear you are dealing with loss again so soon. Sometimes the second (and futures) hit the hardest, for it brings back all the stuff you were too tired or exhausted to think about in the chaos of the first.

I think, my friend, you need a very good rest and I hope the hectic holidays can provide you a wee bit of quiet time, just to be, to grieve, to move forward.

Beautiful photo, Jill. My heart is with you.

Holly said...

P.S. I would like to make a spelling correction to my comment. It is crier...not cryer. I was in a hurry typing the comment. Oops.

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