HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

You can read my Mother’s Day homily if you feel like it… it’s the most topical thing I have lying around the site. I remember reading portions of it aloud to John while I was working on it. I remember a lot.

The song for John is more or less finished.  In the song I pretend to be John, commenting on his own funeral.  Paul came by late last night and I woke up from my exhausted, tear stained sleep to feel him giving me a hug, so of course I just started crying again and recited the lyrics to him.  He was quiet for so long afterwards I thought he’d gone to sleep.  We talked for a bit and he took Keith home.

Yesterday was the worst.  The floodgates opened, and I’m crying again now as I type. I’ve got to get up and start doing something, anything.

I know it’s too soon

But I’m working on a song for John.  I’ve got the chorus and that’s always a very good place to start.

I am so thankful to my mother and father right now for being supportive to Paul and Lois and Ruth while they worked on the admittedly  trying task of tidying up John’s stuff.

I’m very glad I’ve got a new home to move to, as well.  I’m going to enjoy being closer to folks.

Funny – or at least I think so

To find this amusing, you must have liked and be able to recognize the characters from the Lord of the Rings movies. It totally sends up the utter inane slashiness of putting that many pretty men in one room.  Elijah Wood?  Viggo Mortenson?  Orlando frikkin Bloom?

Ruth and Lois and Paul were going to drop John’s stuff in my locker, but I just checked  the time and the gates lock at 9 pm.  So no go.  I won’t get to see them before they go back.

Back to work

I am sure work is going to be dreadful today, but those are the breaks when you run away.  Mike looked after me for a day and a half; he fed me, entertained me, let me noodle around on his Larrivee parlour guitar, and look at the moon through noctilucent clouds.  Words cannot describe his kindness to me.  He also drove me around to check out the new/old house.  So strange, so very strange, to be walking up to a house and seeing the window John helped Paul put in his room so he had some natural light in his bedroom.

I’ll get the back bedroom upstairs, Jeff will get the front; there are two bathrooms, a carport, a huge deck, a place to put the barbecue and hang the hammock, and a little workshop.  It’s a LOT more house for the same amount of money, we’re getting the best landlords in history, and we’ll have room for all of our stuff, for a change.  Kim’s going to call us when the house is ready and we’ll start moving.  Wow! We’ll be able to get all the stuff out of storage!  That will be bizarre.  And Jeff can have his pinballs, that will be most excellent.  We will be walking distance from Mike, Tom and Peggy and Planet Bachelor (and who knows how long Keith and Paul are going to keep living there, given that the house appears to be for sale, off and on, so I don’t know how long that will last) and those are all good things.

I am figuring the back bedroom in the basement for the music room.  The only thing the current digs have that the other place doesn’t is a dishwasher, but I think we will fix that.  Also, I’ve fallen back into the dreaded east Burnaby hole in the Transit, so I’ll be LONGER getting to work in the morning even though I am physically closer.  Sheesh.  I just ran the numbers and if I want to get to work on time I must catch the 7:13 every morning without fail.  I also just remembered that I’ll be on a bus route which completely stops running in bad weather.  Work from home!  Work from home!

Just a little choked with the landlord

I really don’t feel like paying any more rent.  The landlord just moved everything off the back deck and started ripping down the back porch – two weeks of banging and inconvenience, and the cats will be fucking crazy by the time it’s all over.  I’ve come to rue not going in to work today.  Paul and his sisters don’t need any of my help so I’m just sitting around crying.  Yes, Lois and Ruth are in town, I have no idea when I’ll see them, and I shouldn’t bother them right now as they have mountains of crap to deal with.

Anyway, he said he’d cover the gas bill.  Mmmm.  I think they’ll be covering more than that before this is all over.  Now I’m off to inspect the first house I lived in when I moved to Vancouver, as it is for rent soon.  A whole house, for what we’re paying now.

So long.

A long way down

I know I am moving and walking and talking, but there is a deep feeling in me that I’ve forgotten something.  And then I’ll remember that John is dead.  I make breakfast, and then run back to my computer to post another link I just remembered to add to his memorial site.

Juliana, his housemate for the last two years, sent me a very sweet message.  I send you a hug, dear one.  There will be a memorial service in Victoria as well; the folk musicians he played with there very much wish to celebrate his life, and I hope it’s a day I can go.  There will likely be a memorial in Ontario too…. a lot of people knew him and loved him.

The only way I can properly memorialize him is by singing and playing more.  And god almighty, I never felt less like doing it.  Every time I look at my musical instruments, I flinch.  No comfort there yet.

something cute

bunny plus pig

Homily went well.  I will post eventually. (it’s in homilies now) Tom and Peggy, bless them, invited me and Brooke and Paul and Keith over for lunch yesterday and we tried to lever ourselves out of our grief, which at times swamps us, with some planning.  Paul and Keith came back here long enough for dinner and to distract ourselves with some tv and finally I collapsed into sleep.  Now it is two in the morning and I know that if I don’t put down this computer right away I’m going to end up getting no more fracking sleep.

Miss Margot had one tiny matted bit in her fur and gummy eyes – which Keith took care of – but was otherwise unaffected by my absence.

We all have massive lists of things to do.

Despite it all

Life goes on.  I have put the finishing touches on the homily and I will now be getting up and getting started on my day.

On the way home I said to Paul that I was not happy about spending the night away from him and Keith, so I’m at Planet Bachelor right now.  Keith is struggling.  There is so much that can’t be put into words, and he’s trying to make sense of it, something senseless and stupid.  It’s so unfair.

Jim P is counselling us not to rush the memorial service.  The dead stay dead, and the living need time to gather their resources to do a proper job of the memorial.

Sad and dreadful news

John Caspell, Paul’s younger brother, known on this blog as Dr. Filk, died today in hospital.  Lady Miss B was in the room when they called the code.  She called us to the hospital – where we had been planning to visit him this afternoon – but it was too late when we got there.  We said our goodbyes.

All of us here are numb.  Lady Miss B’s husband is about to pick her up and take her back to Vancouver; Paul and I and Keith have one more piece of business to attend to and then we’ll be going back on the 9 o’clock.

I am still giving the homily at church tomorrow but I think I will make room for people to say a few words about John, who was, after all, one of the more interesting, colourful and intelligent people most of us will ever have the chance to meet.  It was a privilege to know him.