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So, I'm back! Arrived by plane yesterday evening, still feeling majorly jetlagged and kind of exhausted even after a decent night's sleep, but all in all doing pretty well emotionally. We have another day off before we have to get to work tomorrow, which is a good thing as it means we can pay a visit to husband's family this evening in lieu of having missed his grandmother's funeral. As for posting here, I have way too much stuff I was thinking of saying and not nearly enough time, so a few short lines will have to do for now.
Firstly, thanks so much for the kind words left at my previous post, about husband's grandmother's death and our vacation dilemma. I haven't had the chance to reply to those messages personally but I'll be doing so as soon as it's practically feasible. As to the decision we made to leave on vacation as planned, we're still happy we made it. I don't think I even mentioned our destination yet, did I? We spent three weeks touring the southwestern part of the USA by rental car, so a pretty big trip for our doing. We made sure to call and email husband's family regularly to see how they were handling things, and on the day of the funeral we visited the San Xavier del Bac mission church in Tucson and lit a candle there; neither of us is religious but husband's grandmother was, and it felt like the right thing to do. The vacation in itself was lovely, physically tiring but mentally relaxing which is everything I need a vacation to be. I even got a little bit of writing done for help_japan, which was a nice bonus. I haven't been able to keep up with my flist, so if there's anything I missed while I was away that I really shouldn't have missed, please drop me a line, will you? :) And I'll do my utmost to catch up on emails as soon as I'm able. We did hear the tornado reports on the news, which were worrying to say the least - I hope everyone here who lives in the affected area or has family who lives there is okay!
On a more serious note, I have been thinking a lot about mortality and death lately, which I guess is only natural when you lose a family member. Husband was particularly upset about the way his gran died. She had a brain tumor - not the malicious kind, but still serious enough that it severely affected the quality of her life. In the end, she was so weak she could hardly even get out of bed unassisted, so she made the decision that she wanted to take the risk of having it removed surgically. The operation in itself was successful in that they managed to remove most of the tumor, but when she regained consciousness afterwards she wasn't able to move, or talk, or do anything except open her eyes. A few days after that her organs started shutting down and she died not too long after that, but the really difficult period for the family were the days in which she was awake yet unresponsive. I don't have a medical background so I have no idea how probable it was that she was still aware and able to understand us, but the idea that a loved one might be in that situation - knowing everything that's going on yet not being able to communicate or even articulate one's fear - was the hardest thing to cope with. Husband and I had a few long talks about it, and what those came down to was that we both think there's no such thing as a death that's not in some way ugly. Either it's entirely unexpected in which case it's the family that takes the blow, or it's the kind of death that one can see coming, in which case there's all the fear and uncertainty to deal with. In that sense, the way his grandmother died really wasn't such a bad way to go - for one thing, she had her family there, her children and grandchildren and a great-grandchild, which is a lot more than some people have at the end of their lives; for another thing, she wasn't ever in pain. Still, that doesn't make it easy to deal with. For myself, as I said, I'm not religious (not anti-religious either; I'm just too much of a scientist to believe in a divine presence) but I do have moments where I envy the people who are. For myself I can't think of many things that make the idea of death bearable, except the knowledge of what you leave behind: friends and family whose lives you've affected, spouses, children... But apart from that, there's not really much at all if you don't believe something or someone is waiting for you when you die. In that sense, the older I get the more certain I am that I do want children; because having a child would be one thing that would make it a little easier to let go. No idea if that's a good reason to be wanting kids, but there it is.
[Note upon re-reading the above: ouch - this got really serious, didn't it? That wasn't quite what I had in mind. Please don't feel obliged to reply to this with something equally serious or deep; I'd be just as happy with a random hello or an update of What Happened in Fandom these past weeks!]
Firstly, thanks so much for the kind words left at my previous post, about husband's grandmother's death and our vacation dilemma. I haven't had the chance to reply to those messages personally but I'll be doing so as soon as it's practically feasible. As to the decision we made to leave on vacation as planned, we're still happy we made it. I don't think I even mentioned our destination yet, did I? We spent three weeks touring the southwestern part of the USA by rental car, so a pretty big trip for our doing. We made sure to call and email husband's family regularly to see how they were handling things, and on the day of the funeral we visited the San Xavier del Bac mission church in Tucson and lit a candle there; neither of us is religious but husband's grandmother was, and it felt like the right thing to do. The vacation in itself was lovely, physically tiring but mentally relaxing which is everything I need a vacation to be. I even got a little bit of writing done for help_japan, which was a nice bonus. I haven't been able to keep up with my flist, so if there's anything I missed while I was away that I really shouldn't have missed, please drop me a line, will you? :) And I'll do my utmost to catch up on emails as soon as I'm able. We did hear the tornado reports on the news, which were worrying to say the least - I hope everyone here who lives in the affected area or has family who lives there is okay!
On a more serious note, I have been thinking a lot about mortality and death lately, which I guess is only natural when you lose a family member. Husband was particularly upset about the way his gran died. She had a brain tumor - not the malicious kind, but still serious enough that it severely affected the quality of her life. In the end, she was so weak she could hardly even get out of bed unassisted, so she made the decision that she wanted to take the risk of having it removed surgically. The operation in itself was successful in that they managed to remove most of the tumor, but when she regained consciousness afterwards she wasn't able to move, or talk, or do anything except open her eyes. A few days after that her organs started shutting down and she died not too long after that, but the really difficult period for the family were the days in which she was awake yet unresponsive. I don't have a medical background so I have no idea how probable it was that she was still aware and able to understand us, but the idea that a loved one might be in that situation - knowing everything that's going on yet not being able to communicate or even articulate one's fear - was the hardest thing to cope with. Husband and I had a few long talks about it, and what those came down to was that we both think there's no such thing as a death that's not in some way ugly. Either it's entirely unexpected in which case it's the family that takes the blow, or it's the kind of death that one can see coming, in which case there's all the fear and uncertainty to deal with. In that sense, the way his grandmother died really wasn't such a bad way to go - for one thing, she had her family there, her children and grandchildren and a great-grandchild, which is a lot more than some people have at the end of their lives; for another thing, she wasn't ever in pain. Still, that doesn't make it easy to deal with. For myself, as I said, I'm not religious (not anti-religious either; I'm just too much of a scientist to believe in a divine presence) but I do have moments where I envy the people who are. For myself I can't think of many things that make the idea of death bearable, except the knowledge of what you leave behind: friends and family whose lives you've affected, spouses, children... But apart from that, there's not really much at all if you don't believe something or someone is waiting for you when you die. In that sense, the older I get the more certain I am that I do want children; because having a child would be one thing that would make it a little easier to let go. No idea if that's a good reason to be wanting kids, but there it is.
[Note upon re-reading the above: ouch - this got really serious, didn't it? That wasn't quite what I had in mind. Please don't feel obliged to reply to this with something equally serious or deep; I'd be just as happy with a random hello or an update of What Happened in Fandom these past weeks!]
