gone: another one of the greats
Well, it happened. Auntie Rose is gone.
I'm not sure it's truly sunk in yet. I haven't cried, which seems strange, since I shed a couple of tears on the bus coming home from the movie last weekend. But, on that day, I was reacting to the news that her death was likely imminent. Since then, Valerie posted to Facebook three times about Auntie Rose's rapidly declining state, and somewhat to my amazement, she texted me directly at 3:42 yesterday afternoon and wrote, I think mom just died. On my way to the hospital.
Literally only five minutes later, at 3:47, I got another text from her, this time including Sherri: Mom just died
It was 10:16 pm before she posted the news to Facebook. Before then, as I had immediately offered after that second text, I shared the news with what extended family I could over Facebook Messenger. This mass-text included Shobhit, Sherri, my brother Christopher, my sisters Angel and Gina, Uncle Paul, Glorya (Uncle Garth's wife), and six cousins—Jennifer, Michael, Ben, Tammy, Shane, and Toni—as well as Toni's husband James. As with before, this was enough so that any family not on Facebook would get the news by at least one of these people: Aunt Penny from Tammy; Aunt Raenae from Toni and James; etc.
Bear in mind, though, that when it comes to myself and my cousins, we're talking about our great-aunt. This entire group of message recipients are either descendants of Grandma McQuilkin or their spouses, and although it might well have been different several decades ago when Dad and his siblings were kids, I would argue that among this line of descendants, particularly in the past couple of years, I was closest to Auntie Rose. For them, this news was probably by and large more like when I hear about the deaths of any of Grandpa McQuilkin's siblings: "Oh, okay." I mean, don’t get me wrong, no one has been insensitive and everyone has offered very kind condolences. But, Auntie Rose was still 82 years old and no one outside of her immediate family quite had the kind of relationship with her that I did.
In fact, I'm not sure I even truly knew how much I meant to Auntie Rose until the past couple of years, when I have seen Valerie a bit more often. Valerie has mentioned virtually every time I've spoken to how "Mom talks about you all the time." Even when she posted a comment on my tribute I posted yesterday, Valerie began with, "Mom loved you so much. She was always talking about her birthday week lunches with you." In fact, when I had dinner with them all at Valerie and Scott's house in Bellevue last November, I was kind of struck by how much less reverence for Auntie Rose Valerie had than I always have. She even said "fuck" in front of her at one point! I would never have done that in a million years, and I can swear with the best of them. And I'm not judging that, mind you—a parent-child relationship is far different and packed with way more nuances and baggage than there could ever be between a great aunt and a grandnephew. I only ever really saw Auntie Rose about twice a year, which kind of makes it impossible to amass any real baggage of any kind.
Anyway. My immediate reaction to the death of Auntie Rose has been kind of . . . odd. I have to admit, I felt slightly prepared for it, thanks to the news coming in from Valerie over the past four days. My brain does do this sort of mental loop-de-loop when I start thinking about the permanence of it, though. I will never see Auntie Rose again. All of my life, from now until forever, there will be no more Auntie Rose in it. And she was so sweet to me, and had a kind of integrity as a Christian that is so rarely found in others: she walked the walk. She was open about her disapproval of "my lifestyle" but still fully accepted Shobhit as a part of the family—she even came to our wedding, the oldest person there and the only one of her generation in attendance (although, to be fair, if Grandma were alive, I think she would have been there too). She once said to me, "I don't support your lifestyle but I support you," and that was why she came. I never bothered to challenger her on how illogical that was: by supporting me she actually was supporting my lifestyle, but whatever! She still had integrity and was one of far too Christians who legitimately followed the teachings of Jesus. She did not judge.
And I keep thinking about this. Grandma was that way too, to an even greater degree. Grandma had a long history of taking sketchy people in at her home, the kind of selflessness even Auntie Rose never did. That's not a dig on Auntie Rose; their lives were different, and to some extent it could be argued Grandma could be a bit reckless in her giving nature, and Auntie Rose was understandably far more cautious. Either way, these two wonderful, beloved women came from the same parents. They were starkly different from each other in demeanor and personality, but their inner nature was essentially the same—and in sharp contrast to Grandpa McQuilkin, who was, frankly, by and large a dipshit, until he sweetened up in maybe the last five years of his life. And if being a truly good person is hereditary, in my family, it comes from the Furister line.
Or course, now I keep thinking about death, and how fleeting life really is, even when you actually life a long and fulfilling life. And about Valerie, and how horrible her experience right now must be. And about my parents, and when I will inevitably have to go through the same thing—hopefully not too soon. All of my parents have now gone through it with all of their parents, between 1986 and 2016. Sherri's dad died suddenly in the eighties; her mom, Grandma Rhoda, passed in May 2011. Grandma McQuilkin died later the same year, in October. Mom's parents died a year apart, Grandpa Minor in 1996—the first death in the family I ever experienced—and Grandma in 1997. Grandpa McQuilkin lasted the longest, passing at age 87 in June 2016. (Bill's mother is still alive back in his birth state of North Carolina, incidentally. But, Bill does not qualify as one of my parents.) In all these cases now, they have all gone through this grief process of losing a parent . . . twice!
Luckily, I have not. I suppose this is one benefit of being the child of horny teens who had children way too young: Dad is only 17 years older than Christopher and only 20 years older than I am. He's not even halfway through his sixties yet! Neither Mom or Sherri will even be 70 for another three years. At the very minimum, barring a sudden tragedy, they probably all have at least another good decade in them, and maybe even another decade that is only slightly less-good after that. Well, except for Mom maybe. With her health history I will be stunned if she lasts that long. But, stranger things have happened.
And with Auntie Rose, I kind of find it a blessing that it all happened so quickly. It's too bad she had to have radiation treatment last fall, and she has been steadily and visibly declining over the past couple of years, just getting more and more frail. Still, when I met her in Port Townsend for my Birth Week last year, even with her having to rely on a cane, we had a lovely time walking the length of the waterfront. I am so, so glad I got to see her that one last time at Valerie's last November, playing Quiddler. And we exchanged emails as recently as January 10, confirming our Birth Week date to visit Fort Worden State Park on Friday, May 1 for my Birth Week this year. Valerie has already emphatically stated she will go there with me now, in Auntie Rose's absence, by which I feel significantly comforted. Anyway, the point is, Auntie Rose was lucid and herself until very, very near the end. This was very different from, and sometime I find far preferable to, Grandma McQuilkin's rapidly worsening dementia for the two years or so before she died. One could argue that also made family feel more prepared once Grandma actually passed away, but it was also at the end of a painfully protracted and horrible process that Auntie Rose, thankfully, did not have to go through.
So, yesterday was quite a day. It started in the morning with the stunning news of one of the longest-standing employees in the Merchandising having been let go, and moved on into the afternoon with the confirmation of Auntie Rose passing. I didn't even listen to music on my walk home from work, as I spent the entire time captioning the photos in my memorial post, the primary text of the post itself having been written up just before I left. I really didn't get any real work done for the last hour or so I was here. I didn't tell anyone about it at work. The death of an elderly great-aunt just does not hold the same kind of weight to people who don't know her, as would, say, the death of a parent. I wasn't devastated. I was just sad, and needing time to process the loss of someone who was very dear and special to me.
I was at my desk in the bedroom when Shobhit got home from work. He heard me sniffing and asked, "Have you been crying?" Nope. Then I had to tell him, I was feeling a little off, and I am really, really hoping I am not coming down with a cold, only a few days after we leave for Australia. Fuck that shit! I got home yesterday feeling unnaturally warm and fatigued. This did start in the morning, before the news of Auntie Rose passing, but I think getting that news did exacerbate it. I tried to get to bed early to get a solid night's sleep, and that wasn't quite successful; Guru woke me up at around 4:20 to the sounds of him puking, and now that I could tell I had to pee, I got up to do so, and since I was up I also cleaned up the puke. I tried to sleep for the last hour or so and only got a small amount of light sleep. On the upside, I don't feel quite as warm or fatigued this morning, so . . . knock-wood.
Shobhit and I made eggplant squash for dinner. He played the Democratic candidates' debate from Las Vegas for most of the evening. I'm beginning to feel like Sanders may very well be our nominee this time around, and even though, unlike Shobhit, I will vote for him if that happens, I so, so do not want it to happen. It will be a huge mistake and either President Fuckwit will easily defeat him in the general election, or Sanders will come in on a wave of naïve voter sentiment of "revolution" that absolutely will not happen, and he won't get anything done. Maybe he'll surprise us all and actually get something done, who knows? But, I doubt it. And I just don't like the man, and I hate that he refuses to speak out against the toxicity of a lot of his supporters. More importantly, he's not even really a democrat, and the fundamental flaw in his plan is the idea that he can change a two-party system from the top rather than from the ground up, which is truly the only way it can be done. He will be a lame dock on arrival.
At least we wouldn't be getting four more years of federal court nominees that are truly horrid and the Senate just accepts. Shobhit doesn't seem to think of that as a worthwhile argument, but I do. That kind of detail seriously matters, and is a massive difference between President Fuckwit and any of the Democratic nominees, even Sanders. But, we'll see how things are looking after Super Tuesday. It just worries me that he remains ahead in the polls nationally. Granted, it's also a valid point to say that a huge majority of people want one of the others, and just have not rallied behind a single challenger. Sanders supporters are so convinced he is the only right person for the job, but naively think that policy positions are all that matters—as opposed to, say, electability—and Shobhit is actually right that these are the same motherfuckers who gave us President Fuckwit by refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton the last time around. The difference is that Shobhit is poised to be as spiteful and petty about it as possible, and I am not. Here's hoping it never comes to that, and Sanders loses the nomination anyway.
That said, especially after last night's debate, it's crystal clear that Mike Bloomberg is also a piece of shit. Sadly, he's probably still better positioned to get something done in Washington than Sanders is. In any case, Bloomberg, Sanders and also Biden are all at the bottom of the heap as far as I'm concerned. My preference is Elizabeth Warren by a wide margin, but her gaining the nomination at this point is kind of a pipe dream. Amy Klobuchar is probably right with her oft-repeated talking points about bringing in the needed independent and moderate voters. Politicians in this country don't tend to move the needle by being radical. Activists do, but they are not the same as politicians. Of course, when it comes to climate change, doing something radical is really the only option left, which means we're still fucked no matter what.
I actually did think this yesterday: at least Auntie Rose won't have to be a part of the world fucking falling apart. I sort of envy that. On the other hand, I'm also fine. I'll continue to be fine, until . . . well, of course, until my own end.
[posted 12:19 pm]