|
|
|
|
#1
07-28-2007, 03:19 PM
|
|||
|
|||
A eulogy of sorts
all right, this post has been a long time in the making and i need to finally get off my ass and finish it. i need an outlet for all of this, and a written one is probably the most appropriate, considering everything.
on june 30th, i visited the helsinki casino for the first time. i wasn't interested in playing because live poker is super gay, but i hung out with a couple of friends while they were on the waitlist. i hated the place -it was full of asian degens- but the company made it bearable; we were planning a trip to my cabin in the countryside in a couple of days, it was going to be awesome. once their seats opened, i walked home and played online for a bit. i took a shot, won a 2k+ pot and waltzed happily to bed at around 6 am. three hours later, my mom burst into my room and gave me pretty much the rudest awakening ever. my father had been found dead in london a few hours earlier that morning. this wasn't a massive surprise, as morbid as that may sound. according to the police, he'd been found passed out next to two bottles of gin and some random pills. we still don't know the official COD, but it's pretty obvious. my parents split up shortly after i was born. dad wasn't at the hospital during my delivery. he said that he was too much of an adventurer type to fit the role of a parent and pretty much ran off. that makes him sound like a huge irresponsible scumbag, which might be right, but it could have been much worse for me. we still saw each other, and thanks to him, i've already gotten to travel more than most people do during their entire lives. he was a journalist, and had been for his entire life. you could say that writing was the only thing he was ever good at. he did several correspondence stints abroad, including a four-year stay in DC. during that time i made several trips to the US, which may be to thank for the english in this post being at all legible [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] he got married to a colleague and stayed with her for about eight years. the divorce was devastating. this was back in 2005. it was when the excessive drinking first started to become noticeable for me; i'd never had any idea it had been some sort of a problem, even though i've recently learned that it had been one of the main reasons for the breakup. we would go out for burgers and he would look like david hasselhoff. he forgot about my sixteenth birthday. my reaction was primarily confused, then pissed off, then worried. i didn't realize that i had reason to be worried. i couldn't grasp that i should be worried about my father slowly killing himself after just turning sixteen. i'll write up some more later. i'm posting this in parts because otherwise i would never finish it. 
|
|
#3
07-28-2007, 03:52 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: A eulogy of sorts
after that entire divorce debacle, things started to look up a bit. we'd go out on runs and he was staying sober most of the time. then he got a job offer as a london correspondant last fall. obviously he accepted, as experiencing the world from all angles was of paramount importance to him. boredom was as good as being dead, i guess.
but moving to live all by yourself in a big suburban house in sleepy new malden with no connections in the city and your only neighbor an 80-year-old widow (although a sweet lady), couldn't have been a good idea, with the mental state he was in. everything was fine, though, he told us, we shouldn't worry. this was standard. there's an assload of jokes about us nordic forest goblins being as gloomy as ghosts, having the communication skills of a dead fish and proclaiming the most ecstatic of joys with melancholic throat grunts. and drinking a lot. for any reason that may be convenient at the time. they're stereotypes. but the solid, solid basis that i've discovered these stereotypes to have in reality are such amazing examples of fiction being a poor imitation of life that i almost feel the need to believe that all jews really are niggards and all blacks really do rob old women's purses. (emphasis on almost. don't ban me.) this is more of a guy thing. both of my paternal grandparents are still alive and dealing with this in very different ways (i can't imagine what all this must feel like for them, btw). my grandma has been bawling her eyes out, but his husband has been mostly quiet. hasn't even cried. one night, my grandmother found him just sitting in a corner, staring at pictures of his son. i'm worried about him. this shouldn't just be dismissed as "his way to cope with it" or something. he's just bottling all of this [censored] inside. so, i'm glad they're going to therapy, i hope it helps. not talking about things is just [censored] up.
|
|
#5
07-29-2007, 07:16 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Re: A eulogy of sorts
ty guys
the funeral was yesterday. first one i've ever attended. we had a bald priest who played the guitar at the afterparty, or whatever it's called. my dad was agnostic, so it was kinda stupid in my opinion to have a bunch of hymns and [censored] sung at the event. the general opinion was clear just by looking around the chapel during the ceremony: the old people in the back sung wholeheartedly, while the rows with the closest friends and family in them were mostly quiet with the exception of my grandma. i'm not gonna protest or anything though, that's too obnoxious for my style. yeah, it's true that my father would have found all the jesus stuff very pretentious and a waste of everyone's time, but to be honest, his opinion doesn't matter anymore. the point of all this is to give my grandparents some sense of closure. funerals are for the living. so whatever, let them pick out the single coffin in the shop that costs twice as much as any other one, i don't care, as long as the insurance covers it. i first broke down when the violins started playing. i can't even remember when i last cried. funerals seem pretty sick, but i felt a lot better afterwards. it's kind of like puking. feels disgusting at first, but it's very purifying. i had to walk out alone and place the first rose on top of the casket. i couldn't say anything. one note about dealing with losses that i feel should be out there is that you need to be there for your friends. not much is needed, just enough that they know you care about them. coping with someting like this is a million times harder when you have to do it alone. you get some ugly, paranoid thoughts. i've really learned to separate the useless a-holes from the reasonable people during all this.
|
 |
|
|
Hybrid Mode
