Greetings from St. Matthew's

We spent nearly all day Sunday with Paul's father, who is holding up remarkably well under the circumstances -- he's very sad and nostalgic, but he's eating and sleeping all right, he's keeping his sense of humor, and he had a lot to contribute when, after a morning weekly church service at stunning St. Matthew's, we met with the pastor who'll be officiating at the funeral on Wednesday to make sure she knew his wishes, which his aphasia sometimes prevents him from expressing. After the meeting, we went out to lunch at his favorite local restaurant, Blue Koi, for Thai food.

 

We stopped at the hotel to change out of church clothes while Clair took a nap. There was football on the television at his place all afternoon, but I don't know who won. We spent the afternoon looking at old family photos, uploading some pics for a video slideshow, and going through some of Cinda's belongings. I asked whether I could wear her turquoise necklace, since we share that birthstone, to the funeral, so I have it here now. We weren't very hungry for dinner, so we picked up yogurt and snacks at a convenience store, and now we're watching the Emmys.

Greetings from BWI

I was expecting to have a pretty miserable Saturday -- I don't love flying even under the best of circumstances, when I'm traveling somewhere I've always wanted to go -- but an unexpectedly nice thing happened when we arrived at SeaTac for our flight east for Paul's mother's funeral: we discovered that we were on an Honor Flight with veterans from all the US armed forces being flown to see the memorials in DC. The oldest was a female World War II veteran in her late 90s, and there were veterans from the wars in Korea and Vietnam too, as well as family members and more recent military officers escorting them. 

This came with some perks for everyone on the plane, since Alaska provided cheese and fruit plates plus drinks (even alcohol) free to all of us, and we got to enjoy the plane decorations, the water cannon salute, and the applause when we disembarked. But it would have been wonderful just to witness the gathering before we boarded, the camaraderie among the soldiers and sailors, and the flight attendants -- some of whom were veterans as well -- dressed in retro uniforms and reading history chapters over the plane's PA system. We landed on time at BWI and now we're at a hotel in Hanover, watching the Maryland-Virginia game.

Poem for Friday and Evergreen Goats

Away 

By James Whitcomb Riley 

I cannot say and I will not say

That she is dead, she is just away.

With a cheery smile and a wave of hand

She has wandered into an unknown land;

And left us dreaming how very fair

Its needs must be, since she lingers there.

And you-oh you, who the wildest yearn

From the old-time step and the glad return-

Think of her faring on, as dear

In the love of there, as the love of here

Think of her still the same way, I say;

She is not dead, she is just away.

-------- 

I spent Friday doing three things: working on an obituary/eulogy, finding and uploading photos of Paul's mother, and getting ready to travel (which involved trying on many dresses because I have no idea what's appropriate or necessary for a funeral when it's likely to be 80 degrees and raining). We also bought cat food and visited with our next door neighbor, who's going to take care of them. 

I've mostly been packing this evening around breakfast for dinner, though every time I glanced at the television, there was disappointing baseball (the Orioles losing to the Tigers, the Yankees coming from behind to beat the Red Sox, and the Mariners currently down 3-0 to the Rangers). Here are the goats of the Evergreen State Fair, who get toddler toys and hay bales to climb in lieu of actual goat walks:

Poem for Thursday and Fair Pigs

Saint Francis And The Sow 

By Galway Kinnell 

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths

sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

-------- 

We had a lot of chores to do Thursday, the most exciting of which was getting haircuts, which at least required us to leave the apartment (something I also did at midday when the office people came around to test the fire alarms, which I dislike as much as the cats do). We only managed a short walk in the late afternoon but there were frogs and osprey and the weather was cool and lovely. 

My Thursday chat group met to talk about the debate, Jewish funerals vs. Christian funerals, fandom, and various other things, after which birthday girl Cheryl and I watched the new episode of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in which basically only Elendil is making decisions I respect, but it's not Pharazon's fault Tolkien turned him into a villain. Pigs at the Evergreen State Fair:

Poem for Wednesday and Enchanted Animals

Ground Zero 

By Robert Creeley 

What's after or before

seems a dull locus now

as if there ever could be more

or less of what there is,

a life lived just because

it is a life if nothing more.

The street goes by the door

just like it did before.

Years after I am dead,

there will be someone here instead

perhaps to open it,

look out to see what's there --

even if nothing is,

or ever was,

or somehow all got lost.

Persist, go on, believe.

Dreams may be all we have,

whatever one believe

of worlds wherever they are --

with people waiting there

will know us when we come

when all the strife is over,

all the sad battles lost or won,

all turned to dust.

-------- 

Parts of my Wednesday were fairly typical -- I talked to all three of my good high school friends in the morning, I watched the second episode of the second season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with Kristen in the afternoon. I also did some chores and won a couple more Pokemon Dynamax battles when we walked to the beach. 

But I also talked to my parents and kids about funeral plans (and in one case wedding plans), and read some 9/11 reminiscences in tribute to the date, though I also looked at a lot of ALF and Simpsons memes in honor of Kamala Harris's opponent having made an absolute ass of himself during the debate last night. THEY'RE EATING THE PETS! 

We ate my leftover chocolate crepes for dinner along with spicy vegan chicken and cheese and shells, then we watched the new Only Murders in the Building after the end of the Orioles overtime loss (the Mariners, at least, beat the Padres). Here are some of the Enchanted Farms animals from the picnic with the alpacas who aren't alpacas: 

Poem for Tuesday and State Fair Star Wars

People Will Come (from Field of Dreams) 

By Phil Alden Robinson 

People will come, Ray.

They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.

And they'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game -- it's a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

-------- 

It was cool and lovely most of Tuesday until an hour or so ago when the rain arrived. I did a bunch of chores in the morning and went out to figure out how the new Pokemon Dynamax power spots work, so now I have some giant red Wooloos and Skwovets and I'm still not sure how they work in the game overall. We spent a lot of the afternoon making plans to travel for my mother-in-law's funeral around a walk to the beach. 

My Voyager group watched "Flesh and Blood" -- which none of us remembered was a two-parter until we were already partway through, so we kept on watching right into the debate hour. Afterward, we ate dinner, saw the end of the Orioles win, and in honor of James Earl Jones, we watched Field of Dreams, one of my two favorite roles of his. In tribute to the other, from the Popnology exhibit at the Washington State Fair: 

Greetings from Redmond

A lot of our Monday was about writing and calling people and places in regard to Paul's mother's funeral. It will probably be at the beginning of next week because the church can't accommodate a memorial service on the weekend and all the people who want to come can't get there earlier, though we may go Thursday or Friday depending on a bunch of factors. 

We had lovely weather, walked to the beach, ordered dinner from Bangkok Basil because we ran late after a family Skype call about the memorial arrangements. Now we're watching The Boy and the Heron, perhaps not the best choice because a mother's death is a major issue, but beautifully filmed and an interesting perspective on family. The water varmint we sometimes see in the lake:

Placeholder for Sunday

We lost Paul's mom on Saturday morning. She had had congestive heart failure nearly a decade ago and was suffering from some form of dementia -- we could never get a straight answer about whether it was Alzheimer's-related or a result of limited oxygen to her brain from the heart issues, and since her own mother had suffered from something similar, Paul's mother said she never wanted to know if it was Alzheimer's. So I have the odd feeling of missing her and also feel like I've been missing her for several years now; the last two times I saw her, she had no idea who I was, even though I'd known her for nearly 40 years. 

I have been extremely fortunate in my choice of in-laws. Paul's mother was a big part of our lives and our kids' lives, and was very important both to her extended family and to the many friends and former parishioners with whom she kept in touch from the years they were living and touring in an RV. So we had a complicated, emotional weekend that at least included talking to a lot of family. On Sunday we took it easy, went to the Original Pancake House with Daniel and Cahaya, and walked around Redmond Town Center and one of the local parks. Our neighbors just brought us chrysanthemums and a card, which was lovely.