My thanks to everyone! (and especially MJ).
He's right, and this is one point that is especially important to me right now. Over the years, this Dynaverse community has become like a family in many, many ways. We may not always keep in touch, some of us may not like each other much at all, but when the chips are down we are there for each other.
This last weekend we buried my grandma. Many of you are quite aware of the love/hate relationship I had with her. Are arguments shook the house at times, but we never stopped loving each other. This weekend was surreal in many respects. My four cousins and I stood together, in Grandma's driveway and realized that by and large, the generations before us were all gone. (Two of my cousins still have one parent left, but it was the parent that divorced their other parent and who never stayed close). Our grandfather died in 1975, and all of Grandma's children died in the last seven years (my dad in 2007, Aunt Bev in 2002, and Aunt Carol a month ago). It was hard on Grandma to lose all her children first, and mercifully it sped up the end for her.
My family has a tradition at funerals that I actually don't like, most of the time. They like for friends and family members to get up and speak for deceased. I've resisted doing it when Mom passed, when Dad passed, and when both of my aunts passed away. Both of my grandmother's surviving sisters, my sister, and all my cousins asked me to do it this time, and I did. I did it mostly because I knew it was what my grandmother would have wanted. Now, I've spoken in public in the past. I've given a speech in front of several hundred thousand people, I've spoken on NPR, on local television news, and given testimony before committees of California's State Assembly and State Senate. Also, I've written speeches for political candidates for a wide variety of offices, written e-mails that have gone out to thousands and thousands of people as part of a political/issues campaign.
Speaking for my Grandmother at her funeral was the hardest of them all, and according to everyone who came up and spoke to me afterwards, I think it was also the best speech I've ever given.
This weekend was as close to perfect a farewell for our grandmother as it could have been. From picking up my sister and my cousin Brian at the airport (on two separate days), to the service itself, to the reception dinner we held at Grandma's house for over fifty people afterwards, all the way to the end of the night where I sat around the table on the back patio playing poker with my sister, my cousins, my partner, my best friend, and another family friend. It was just an absolutely perfect weekend, full of the fellowship and sharing that was the hallmark of my family.
As I said in my speech...They're all gone now. The family that we grew up with, the family that raised us, not as cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, living lives each on their own, but rather as a family that grew together, loved together, and shared together. The generations that came before us have left this life to their great reward in Heaven, but we, their children and grandchildren, stand together today. We remember what they taught us, to love one another, to forgive, to accept, and always to remember that we are a family. They may be gone, but the traditions, the values, and the love that they taught us live on today in us, and in our children. We will never forget all that they gave to us, and we will pass on these traditions and beliefs to our children, because they are good things, right things, in a world that has all too often forgotten what it means to love and be loved.
Topic: An Update on me...(TheJudge) (Read 8016 times)