saltdawg | (no subject)

I never knew my father's father. His name was Chet and he died almost a month before I was born.

All my distant relatives always tell me that I remind them of Chet. They tell me I have the same sense of humor and sensibilities. I love my father to death, but I think those traits skipped a generation.

My father is 29 years older than I am, and when I was home for a couple of days back in January, my father was waxing about turning 69. He started to talk about how he had 19(plus or minus, I really don't know) years on his dad and how different things could have been if his dad didn't die when he did.

Now keep in mind I never knew the man, but what I said to my father when he was getting misty was something along the lines of this:

He died ice fishing, right? (yes) And that was his favorite thing to do, right? (yes) (he fell on the ice and had a brain hemorrhage of some sort and was DOA when the ambulance arrived.) And I told my dad that he died running after a tilt flag, (which he did) expecting to catch a fish. I asked him how much happier could ol' Chet be? My father took a moment, (and I'll say he tossed a log on the fire for storytelling's sake), and my pop said that there wasn't anything that could have made Chet happier. He eventually told me that he'd never thought about it that way. Forty years he'd been mourning, and never thought about the fact that his father died when he was just about the happiest he ever could be.

All of our relatives that knew chet tell me that I'm a dead ringer for his personality. I believe in re-incarnation, but not that kind. Jim Morrison died just before I was born, and I'll bet there would be people who knew him who would swear I was his newest incarnation too, and Jim Morrison and Chet are pretty far removed from each other.

Which gets back to my eventual epic post about being a tabula raza for people and how I've made it through life by being everything THEY think they were, while I never was. But like I said, that's something else I'll write about when the time is right.

Anyway. The entire point I'm trying to make is that I really, really, hope I'm happy as I can be when I die. I'd rather die at the mermaid parade next month with two beauties on either arm, than in the old Mason's home in 30 years. I just don't want to die before my parents. That's the only thing that's kept me from pulling the trigger when I've tasted shotgun grease in my mouth in the past. My folks are pretty good people, and they don't deserve to wonder like my dad wondered for 40 years.

dig?

Threaded | Flat

Dig.

I think about my grandad often. He died when I was 7. He was my favorite human on the earth. i've never gotten over it.

He flew Cessnas and shit for fun. I want to clean up enough to learn to fly Cessnas. I mean, he said he'd teach me one day. I want to learn just for his memory. no idea how i will do it, with my flying fear (when takeoff happens i have to picture myself at 6 in his arms at the Planetarium.) but I will do it for him.

You're going to the Mermaid Parade? It's not next month, it's June 19th :)

Way back in 1991 or 92, I had a girlfriend whose family lived in Indiana. She had relocated to San Francisco and we were gonna meet for the race that year. Well, the morning she was slated to board her plane, (I was slated to board mine the following day) she called me at work, stunned, because her father had just died of a heart attack on the tennis court after playing a game. All I could say was how sorry I was... and I could not help but ask her if she'd find out whether or not he'd won that game. She said it really took a lot of her mind off the whole thing and that yes, in fact, he had won his last game of tennis. Yeah you right!!!

In other news, I don't want to die alone... but I'm pretty certain I'm gonna.

Dig.

My best friend's father died of cancer and spent his final weeks in alternate agony and morpheus curling up into a waxy shell of himself in a stinking bed, I never ever understood why he didn't pick a moment before hand and just stop it all on a high. Quite frankly the nurses killed him off anyway out of kindness, as they nearly always do, so why not just take the morphine on a good day in the sunshine while listening to the cricket?

That's a good way to think about it. I think people get clouded with how much they miss people who have died and don't often think of it in ways like that.

I miss my Mom terribly, but she (mostly) died having her morning coffee and chatting with my Dad. She lost consciousness at least (and they say she didn't know anything after that) and that would have made her pretty happy. She needed her morning coffee to be ready to go anywhere- probably to die, even. It makes me feel better to know that at least she got her coffee!

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Mermaid Parade? Seriously?

When I was a kid, I used to sit at the bottom of the swimming pool and pretend I was a mermaid. This may or may not have anything to do with my enormous obsession with anything related to Atlantis / underwater life in general.

I wish I lived closer. I'd totally show up. Have a drink or six for me?

The one thing I can ever remember my folks asking was to not be pre-deceased by any of their kids.

I know this one request has seen me through the evilest of times.

Wishing you fun & easy times, amigo.