Happy yesterday's birthday, erikaj!

I'm sorry about the potential cousin issues at the funeral, David. Do we all have that one cousin? The one who makes us roll our eyes and think (or say), "Oh lord, it's that asshat. Again."

FWIW, I don't think suggestions for therapy are because you're doing grieving "wrong". As far as most people can probably see, you've been a rock through this, even if you've been letting yourself fall apart in private, so they probably want to make sure there's someone in your corner who can look out for your emotional health—someone who isn't grieving themselves.

Sometimes I think I should have looked into therapy after my dad died. I was the person taking care of him as best I could toward the end, with no other family in the state. In retrospect, deciding a short while after the funeral to go off antidepressants and start flying lessons was maybe not the . . . healthiest(?) . . . response to it all. Eh, I got through.

Yes. Well, actually I just don't "get" any of my cousins.(The one the world would say I had the most in common with? With the kidney transplant?(Actually, there may have been two...I've lost track. Which sounds bad, but that ten years is a big gulf when you're kids and stuff. And she's in WI.) Well the way she deals is, like, her life is like a giant theme park for her and her Lucky-from-KOTH-style hubby. Everybody kind of treats her like she is still the nine-year-old she was when she started the kidney thing. (and, like, ew, nine-year-olds don't have husbands. We used to think it was a more concrete *scam*, but I think he loves her and all that, he just "ain't about nothing" as some black people say.) I am ambivalent about all of that stuff and not just because her dad, the Rev, has mad flow and when it comes to *his* Daughter Who Almost Died--check it out, a Theme, he may gripe, hard-core, but money is kind of no real object. Which partially is, like, "Must be nice" and partially? A little Grey Gardens for me(Even if my Simonverse folks wouldn't kick me out of the fandom for being so reality-allergic.)

My therapist is a jewel. She's always interested in what I have to say about what I'm feeling, she may offer a different POV. But she has no investment in my life, no expectations, so it's always easy to do conversational drift with her about things either odd or deferred or boot of iron that I've found impossible to ponder to any sort of resolution. I wish you such a person when you are ready. And meanwhile, solace where you can take it, and strength to get through this, right now.

That does sound lovely.

I think there's definitely benefit in therapy both during times of trauma, as well as after the immediacy of loss subsides....there are so many tasks and overwhelming emotions right away, and the community usually steps up and helps out which is great. Then as time passes and support networks fade back to their "normal," there's the mundanity of having to adjust to a new day-to-day reality. That can be really hard in a way that feels...like something we should just be "able to handle" because we're strong and smart and capable. But it's also an adjustment period that just awful and miserable and can be profoundly lonely.

A good point.

I'm sorry about the potential cousin issues at the funeral, David.

They'll be well behaved. They value propriety over anything. They'll just talk shit behind my back. Oh well, I don't really need to interact with them after this.

What I will think but won't say to Aunt Elene: "I think maybe your hairstylist actively hates you."

So, I met with the Pastor to go over the funeral plans, then went by the mortuary to collect JZ's ashes.

Only sobbed twice. Once in front of the Pastor and Facilities Manager as I tried to describe Jacqueline's "moral elegance." Once when I got in the car with a heavy little bag that was all that was earthly that was left of her.

Nacho update - DoorDash is having a $12 off of $15 order deal today so I am getting $12 nachos effectively free! Also a couple of tacos. I expect it to be way too much food. I was actually kind of absent-mindedly thinking this might be the opportunity to try the $27 nachos and find out what the deal is, but I came across this Coconut Grove restaurant and that's just such a great name (I have seen the sign from the freeway a lot, so I guess their advertising has worked)

And I'd bet you a nice stack of folding money that my dad tries to make it seem like he helps that much when he talks to everyone back home, too. Which bugs, even though being the boomer with the fifty-seven photos of some non-occasion isn't exactly evidence.(Although I laugh at that commercial every time.) If my father put the effort into not *being* a jerk, that he puts into not *seeming like* a jerk, we'd all be happy. But why do I care, if I don't exactly want to lean back and be somebody's Pretty Pretty Princess who starts the Christmas Countdown on November 1?(Well, it would still be better than the tender mercies of Medicaid...if only just. ) I really love activism, honestly, if maybe not that there are so many frustrating fights to wage, but sometimes I wish I could get e-mails that said "This is not your problem," or "Get something nice for a change," Not that I'd feel right about it very much, cause I give a fuck when it ain't my turn.(And one day, even Uncle Al's not immortal. But it's not like I have some wisdom to share, by any means. Cause, you know, the fingernail thing.)

Oh, Hecubus. Would it help more for me to sit with you and feel the feelings, or to call on you to dig deep and find that Hessian fortitude/? Cause I can do either, although the second one is kind of second-languagey. We love you, though. My grandma lied about scattering my grandpa and made my poor mom, well, find, him, years later, in freezer bags all over the house. Mom was freaked about accidentally sticking her hands in it Which doesn't really match with Grandma being the world's whitest ghetto snob, but whatever. I would vote for going out to what's left of the Salton Sea and scattering *everyone*, but my brother won't have it.

{{{Hec}}}That sounds heavy indeed.

{{{Hec}}}

I just heard from my niece. My sister is gone.

Matilda and I were talking about it in the car on the way home.

I said, "I think Judy is close."

And she said, "I feel that too."

There's something to be said about stacking up all your traumas in one day. That day is going to suck anyway.

{{{Hec & Matilda}}} I’m sorry you have to deal with another loss so soon.