What’s On Your Mind?

[Citysnaps]

I just learned The Kinks are getting back together. Pretty stoked about that.

 

[lizkat]

I just learned The Kinks are getting back together. Pretty stoked about that.

Been taking their sweet time making up their minds about it, gee!

 

[Edd]

I just learned The Kinks are getting back together. Pretty stoked about that.

Don’t see that anywhere.

 

[lizkat]

Please pray for my sister, she is in hospital with extremely poor prognosis after surgery to remove blood clots thrown in an adverse reaction to meds given for amelioration of a very recently diagnosed illness. She and caregivers knew the risk to the elderly included blood clots. And,,, they did turn up, unfortunately. Her prognosis was already not good. I just want her not to suffer. All they are doing is hydrating her and giving pain meds, nothing else left to do right now.

It's pretty stunning to get my head around this, as the whole situation had presented and evolved so quickly. Working on trying to accept the fact that I'm personally in charge of no more than getting myself from dawn to dusk each day, and nothing that has happened today has augmented my powers. So there are memories of shared moments of parallel and independent lives, and no one can take those from me, but it sounds like we may welll have quit making new memories of wacky fabric-shopping adventures and wild weekends of "getting around to..." cutting and sewing some of our purchases, all the while catching up with each other's lives since last time we'd gotten together.

I'll sleep tonight under a quilt she made for me after reading some poem I scrawled once about purple asters. I had no idea she was working on such a project -- all the fabrics had asters or flowers of complementary colors-- but one day it materialized as a gift representing months and months of her handiwork.

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That's how she's always been, so thoughtful and such a talented translator of aspects of her siblings' lives. A bro complained once about the loneliness of an over-the-road trucker, and she presented him next time he was home with a "Misery Loves Company" wall hanging of howling coyotes that she'd spotted a pattern for, and made up for him in the meantime... it was a big hit!

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[lizkat]

My sister passed away peacefully this evening under palliative care at the hospital where she actually used to work. Her companion of many years and her grown children were all with her. What a whirlwind of a last chapter. It will take awhile for the loss to sink in, but the rest of us were trading photos and memories by text and mail over the past couple days, trying to get used to the idea of coming up short on the sibling count as we go forward.

Thank you for holding a good thought for her in the meantime. I found a rainbow photo she took and mailed to me after one of my kitties had passed away. It reminded me then and does now that rainbows are all about the end of a storm and a fresh take on the day...

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[Apple fanboy]

My sister passed away peacefully this evening under palliative care at the hospital where she actually used to work. Her companion of many years and her grown children were all with her. What a whirlwind of a last chapter. It will take awhile for the loss to sink in, but the rest of us were trading photos and memories by text and mail over the past couple days, trying to get used to the idea of coming up short on the sibling count as we go forward.

Thank you for holding a good thought for her in the meantime. I found a rainbow photo she took and mailed to me after one of my kitties had passed away. It reminded me then and does now that rainbows are all about the end of a storm and a fresh take on the day...

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Sorry for your loss. Hope you are doing ok.

 

[lizkat]

Sorry for your loss. Hope you are doing ok.

Thank you. I know that you know it just gets different after awhile, not "better"... I'm comforted by memories and the presence of things my sister had made for me or given me over the years, or shared with me as photos or descriptions in mail, email, texts.

I don't shy away from the feelings all those things provoke, either. It would be futile to try to treat my home and heart like minefields, trying somehow to avoid the grief of losing someone I had loved. I tried that in vain when my grandmother passed away over 40 years ago, and learned the hard way that one can postpone understanding a great loss but not finally escape it. So I bump into my grief over my sister's passing a hundred times a day now, even as I can laugh to remember some of the great times (and a few memorable misunderstandings) we had had over the years.

Still, I'm also trying not to anticipate sorrows I haven't bumped into yet. Caught myself doing that the other night when I grabbed a fresh pair of chopsticks out of a cupboard. Damn, I thought. I can never go in Win Li's again without bursting into tears. Well that's not true, even if I know that will be how it will be on the first "next time" I visit that Asian market up in Ithaca. I couldn't shop at Hannaford for awhile in Oneonta after my youngest brother had died. We went there together so many times. Finally realized the way to go about it was cry in the parking lot so I wouldn't cry in the damn store! One step at a time.

My sister would laugh at me turning down the opportunity to cruise Win Li's any day of any week anyhow. We always went there with shopping lists, usually mundane stuff like re-ups on sweet hot chili sauce, baby bok choi, frozen potstickers, some chopsticks... and then always gravitated to the back of the shop to have a look at whatever new little blue and white bowls or dipping-sauce dishes might have landed there since a previous visit. We both knew that one could never have too many tiny bowls and plates for the assembly of ingredients before start of cooking. So I can imagine her right now saying "what, you're gong to quit eating because you can't bear looking at some crockery?!" Yeah, no. So I look, and weep and laugh in the same breath. If I break the tiny blue and white bowl that I put minced garlic in, I'll be up to Win Li's like a shot out of a cannon.

 

[Herdfan]

My sister would laugh at me turning down the opportunity to cruise Win Li's any day of any week anyhow. We always went there with shopping lists, usually mundane stuff like re-ups on sweet hot chili sauce, baby bok choi, frozen potstickers, some chopsticks... and then always gravitated to the back of the shop to have a look at whatever new little blue and white bowls or dipping-sauce dishes might have landed there since a previous visit. We both knew that one could never have too many tiny bowls and plates for the assembly of ingredients before start of cooking. So I can imagine her right now saying "what, you're gong to quit eating because you can't bear looking at some crockery?!" Yeah, no. So I look, and weep and laugh in the same breath. If I break the tiny blue and white bowl that I put minced garlic in, I'll be up to Win Li's like a shot out of a cannon.

Yes, focus on the good times you had and not the future times you won't.

My daughter is very good at this for someone so young. While she mourned her grandmother, with who she was very close, she has kept several things that remind her of the many good times they spent together. For example she has the wood spoon they used to make Toll House cookies when she was young.

Sorry for your loss and I hope the remembrance of good times with your sister will outweigh the sense of loss.