Lord Jim & RayThom & grieving

[BoSoxGal]

I am feeling these losses rather acutely, despite having only a digital experience of both of them.

Lord Jim was clearly the heart of this place - his posting stats speak for themselves. I am particularly missing his voice/viewpoint on all the politics craziness. I really hope if he’s someplace with pull he will squash Trump - of course my recently expanded ocean of grief is rough sailing probably because I don’t believe any of my beloved people are anywhere but in the ground or on the wind. (And in my heart, of course!)

I am missing RayThom differently but equally - he often made me laugh, something I so appreciated.

I am missing them and all my missings - there are so many of them now, sometimes in that regard I feel like my life is Lemony Snicket-esque - and I am also experiencing a lot of grief daily as this pandemic death toll unfolds around me every day. I feel vicarious grief for all the families suffering losses, some of them extra horrible - several members of the same family, children orphaned - and for all the people whose life dreams are crumbling around them from the covid19 economic depression and/or the horrific wildfires and other extreme natural weather events happening everywhere and riots and violence and . . .

Sometimes it feels like grief is just the unifying force of life as you age. But certainly right now, the grief is extra heavy. Here. Out there. Everywhere.

Sorry I keep starting heavy threads, but it is what it is. Supposedly we feel better if we share grief.

I might need to watch Six Feet Under again.

[Burning Petard]

" Supposedly we feel better if we share grief." Which I suppose is one of the reasons I spend Thursday evenings with a Zoom group called Survivors of Suicide. I miss lots of stuff, lots of people, and even the good old days, like 5 years ago. I knew LJ only through his posts. RayThom I met because he only lived about 10 miles away from beautiful downtown Bear Delaware. My world is smaller now without them. Where are they now? in this virtual world I suppose they are out there with the Chicken thread and Library Guy and Slant6.

snailgate

[Crackpot]

Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to six feet under again? That show jumped the shark better then Fonzie could have dreamed.

[BoSoxGal]

Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to six feet under again? That show jumped the shark better then Fonzie could have dreamed.

While imperfect at times, it has so many moments of brilliance that more than compensate.

[Big RR]

And the final episode was a real gem, unlike most final episodes.

[Crackpot]

The last few seasons were a death spiral that ruined everything that was great from the early seasons.

[Crackpot]

The final episode at best returned to par for the early seasons still too much drama/misfortune to maintain credibility. It seems to Be a pattern in Alan Balls’ serial works a few seasons just to devolve into a succession of overly dramatic tragedies.

[Big RR]

What you point out happens to most multi-season series, as melodrama is always easier to write than smart dialogue and storylines. It's the rare series that doesn't degenerate into the soap opera.

[BoSoxGal]

Speaking of grief, it’s 9/11. Another year to mark a tragic day that sparked 19 years of ongoing tragedy measured in lost lives, displaced lives, misspent fortune, shrinking liberties, stoked xenophobia and nationalism, and on and on.

On my black & white photography page someone posted a photo of the 9/11 memorial in Lisbon Maine, which features a piece of beam from ground zero - I wasn’t sure at first if it was representative art or the real thing, so I looked it up and in so doing stumbled on the 9/11 memorial in Lisbon Wisconsin which also features a piece of a beam from ground zero. That got me wondering how many towns and cities big and small all over this nation have pieces of the fallen towers on display in their town centers or memorial parks? And I’m not sure if I view this as a positive thing, or a potentially somewhat creepy thing.

Will these towns and cities build a little corner in the memorial park with a modest marker for the half million to million people (half million is the prediction for January, so all in before this thing ends, it might be more than a million) or more that will die from covid19? I understand that a viral pandemic is not the same as a calculated act of terrorism - but how this pandemic has been mismanaged by our federal government sure feels like an act of domestic terror.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Interesting idea, BSG. If such memorials are erected, we might find that Trump's reluctance to remove historical markers suddenly vanishes.

[ex-khobar Andy]

And to return to the topic: I also miss both LJ and Ray although I often disagreed with both of them. Loss of cyber friends is no less real than those we know in flesh and blood; and I probably had more conversations with them in the last fifteen to 20 years (RT from Car Talk; LJ from Smitty's IIRC - we certainly had a bet on GWB's campaign in 2004) than I had with anyone during that time with the exception of family and work colleagues.

I sometimes think that (Tess) Smitty's board turned into reality (it may have been Le Chat House by then - don't recall and someone here might help me) when Tess's beloved Douglas died. She came on that night to tell us. "Douglas died today." She was in the depths of despair and turned to her on-line friends. We expressed sympathy as best we could from the other side of a screen. Grieving isn't easy - and of course our friend SG/BP has experienced that IRL very recently. I recall when Denniz at LCH died - car accident December 2015 - and I felt guilt. I knew that Denniz was on his own and that he lived in St Louis 100 miles away from where I then lived. I had a half formed idea to invite him to come over for Christmas but hadn't got around to it. If I had, might he not have taken that fateful ride? (Butterfly effect.)

We all grieve in our own way; and of course there is no right way or wrong way to do it. But I think that sharing it, as BSG says, helps. It certainly has for me in my life.

[Joe Guy]

Jim's death hit me hard. One of the things I liked about him was that although he was younger than me, he reminded me of my older brother, who died in 2009. I really regret that I live about 25 miles from him but my desire to remain as anonymous as possible kept me from meeting up with him. I wanted to ask him if it was okay to visit him after he let me know me he was sick but I didn't want to bother him.

Ray wasn't supposed to die. I guess I was in denial when he explained his situation. I believed he would make it through this last bout even though I knew it was very very serious. His opinions and his humor were always welcome - even if I disagreed with him or if I was the butt of the joke. He was always optimistic (in a pessimistic kind of way) and I admired his obvious love for and his pride in his daughter. One thing I want to mention (to make myself feel better) is that I'm the one who was able to persuade him to come over here from Le Chat House back before Denniz died and the rest of you joined us. That should count for something since I also was successful at getting wesw to join us.

There are too many bad things going on right now across this country and the earth. Sometimes it seems unreal like a bad science fiction movie. Given my tendency to act less than serious most of the time, it probably sounds odd but people here have taught me a lot and helped to keep me sane. I appreciate the contributions of each and everyone here and hope we are able to continue this odd but probably more normal than we realize relationship for as long as possible. Carry on....

[MajGenl.Meade]

That should count for something since I also was successful at getting wesw to join us.

Like Siamese twins really . . .

All that you said.... all said in others' posts....

[BoSoxGal]

How You Die When Someone You Love Dies
FEBRUARY 17, 2015 / JOHN PAVLOVITZ

At one time or another you’ve probably heard someone say that when a person you love dies, a part of you dies too.

I used to think that was just a beautiful figure of speech, a touching poetic image that spoke symbolically to the depth of our profound sadness and loss.

That is, until this week—when I died.

My father passed away suddenly nearly two years ago, and I’ve written a great deal here about the road I’ve traveled since then. It’s one that’s meandered from the night-time depths of heaving sobs, to sweet sunrise moments of incredible gratitude. Most of the time I’ve naturally grieved his loss from my life; the absence replacing his presence.

Recently though, I came face to face with the me who also left for good, on the day that he did.

Over the course of our 44 years together, my dad and I did lots of really great stuff—just the two of us. As you do when you lose someone you love, I often find myself randomly rewinding to those places and times in the past, to remind me of the love and adventures and the laughter we shared. One of those cherished memories was of the Saturdays in my early teenage years, when I’d accompany him to a local indoor flea market at the New York State Fairgrounds. Times were tough for our family then (though I was quite oblivious), and my father was selling athletic shoes on the side to help keep our heat on and our pantry full.

It was an incredible struggle for him and I’m sure from his perspective, a pretty rough time. To me it was like Christmas at Disneyland.

I’d get up before the sun on Saturday and help him load up the shoes into massive hockey bags and off we’d go. We’d usually eat breakfast from one of the vendors on site in the damp cold of the early winter morning. (I can still taste the bagels grilled on a huge flat top with gobs of butter and smell the bacon that had been crisping up next to them). Once things were up and running at my dad’s booth, I’d head off to explore the flea market, which may as well have been an amusement park to my ninth grade brain. I spent hours and hours looking through racks of record albums, digging through old comic books, trying out stereo equipment, making handmade buttons with silly catch phrases on them, and checking out cute girls at the other booths.

Between all of that, I’d hang out with my dad and watch him do his thing with customers, trying to be helpful where I could. Later we’d pack up everything and usually head back home after lunch. They were precious times.

There are lots of other things that happened during those weekends he and I spent together at the flea market; more stories, more conversations, more meals, more funny anecdotes—but I no longer have access to them.

That’s what people never tell you about the real, fundamental, life-giving stuff you lose when someone you love leaves.

You lose the part of you that only they knew.

You lose some of your story.

It simply dies.

My dad was the only one there with me during those special Saturdays, and now that he’s gone there’s no one to go to to help me relive or revisit or remember them when I want to. There’s no one to help fill in the gaps of my memories, no one to give me the pieces of life that belonged only to the two of us—and I hate that.

Any part of those days that exists outside of my memory is now dead and buried.

If you haven’t walked the Grief Valley yet, just trust me on this.


One day you will miss someone dearly and when that cold reality hits you; the truth of just how much of you is gone too, you’ll grieve the loss of yourself as well, even as you live.

One of the great things about having people who love you and who’ve lived alongside of you for a long time is how they can surprise you, how when you’re with them they can dig out a story or unveil something about you that you had totally forgotten about or had never known at all. My dad would do that all the time, matter-of-factly tossing off a random memory that allowed me to see myself through his eyes. It was like having a small lost part of you suddenly and unexpectedly returned to you.

As much as I miss my dad (and I do miss him terribly) I miss the me that he knew, too. I grieve the loss of our shared story.

I mourn losing the childhood me who napped with him on his bed, the teenage me who spent those priceless Saturday mornings with him, the college aged me who fell asleep while he drove the four-hour trip back to college, the middle-aged me who made him laugh with silly stories of his grandkids.

Just as sure as he isn’t coming back, neither are those parts of my story because he was their co-owner.


Friends, as you grieve for those who are gone, know that it’s normal to also lament the part of you that they’ve taken with them.

While those experiences formed you and reside deep in the fabric of your very heart, in ways that certainly transcend your memories, the painful gaps will still be there in what you lose without their eyewitness testimony.

Those aren’t just flowery words meant to simply paint a picture of grief, they’re a vivid description of real, personal loss.

A part of you does indeed die when someone you love passes away.

May they, and the unique part of you they’ve taken with them, both rest in peace.

[Bicycle Bill]

Just for the record, I also miss LJ and RAYThOM, but not in the same way that I am still feeling the loss of Katie Barefoot.

-"BB"-

[Burning Petard]

Way up in this thread I post what I am usually doing on Thursday evenings. On the evening of the shortest day of this year, a virtual and a real group met in a local Methodist church and on facebook for a memorial service for those who had ended their own life. Lamentations 3:16ff was read. Candles were lit, names are spoken, silence was observed. The timing was intentional. Now we all share increasing sunlight each day. When one falls, all feel the pain. No loving creator, no promise of a better life hereafter, no confidence there is a greater plan and all will work for the best, none of those things,
changes the subjective and real pain.

I think I am a follower of the itinerant carpenter from Nazareth. He died a very painful death. I have a little knowledge of other religions and philosophies. Enuff to know I cannot speak about their existential solutions to this issue. I do know Dietrich Bonhoeffer died with a steel cable around his neck after hours of torture.

My own wife's dying words were 'It hurts."

Albert Camus's solution was that life is absurd. And that means we should take joy were we can find it. A neighbor told me this afternoon they tried to call me but their phone need re-charging. This was after we both listened via zoom to a sermon this morning that included the statement that we need to keep our cell phones charged and we need to maintain contact with the prime cause to keep our own life spiritually charged.

We laughed together.

RayThom invited me to laugh. I now understand that is a very important contribution to the human community.

snailgate

[Sue U]

I had been on something of a hiatus from the board during April, May and June this year. At the beginning of July, Ray sent me a PM asking if I was okay and generally checking on my well-being. I was truly touched that he would inquire, especially given his own health issues. He assured me that he was doing well and was hopeful about the future. In all the years I "knew" him, I would never have described Ray as warm and fuzzy, let alone an optimist, but he seemed ready to find satisfaction and even joy in just being alive. His daughter lives not far from me, and I invited him to bring her to a concert when our local orchestra season starts next year. But that was just not meant to be.

I do wish Jim were here to see the absolutely bonkers aftermath of the election. I'm sure he'd have a few choice words, and I wonder if he'd actually become a Democrat, upon seeing the ruin of the GOP. He was a happy warrior, and the world has been diminished by his passing.

2020 has been a fucked up year. It can't be over soon enough.

[BoSoxGal]

That piece really hit me when I found it on Facebook today, as it speaks so much to how I feel these days, having lost to untimely deaths nearly all the people who’ve known me since childhood and thus loved me the best.

It also made me think of this place, and those we’ve lost over the years. And especially Jim, who was a kind of keeper of our collective memory in that he was always so brilliant at going back and finding posts in our archive to speak to a particular debate or to remind a particular poster about their evolving positions over time. He was also the most prolific poster here. When he died, a big part of us died too - and it just feels very different here now.

[Big RR]

It's very true that when someone near to you dies, a piece of you dies too. And things change; at best you can rejoice in having known them and try to reclaim it, but it is always imperfect and something is lost. My parents have been gone for some time now (my mother in 2002, my father in 2010) and one thing that makes me sad is I cannot remember what they looked like; they reside in my memory as the photos /home movies, videosI have in the albums we have and they look like them, but the images are, at best, imperfect. I cannot recall a single memory of either where their image has not been replaced by the photographic images. I recall their voices and many things that occurred with them (although maybe imperfectly as well), but they are gone.

The best we can do is to enjoy the time we have. Even if there is an afterlife (which I do believe there is), it will not be a continuation of this; this is the only life of this type you will have and we must make the most of it, bith with what we do now and what we choose to leave behind.

so yest, this place is not the same, nor will it ever be, but it is up to us to di the best we can with it.