June 09, 2004 - 8:38 a.m.
A million things to write and no time to do it. Fly, fingers, fly.
This weekend was University. I calculate I spent about 22 hours from 1pm Friday to 6 pm Sunday in the car. Weather and traffic stretched a 8 or 9 hour drive Friday night to an interminable 12 hours. Jake and I were supplied with a variety of books on tape - a must for travel with a carload of quiet people. The first, however, decided to commit suicide in my tape player and jammed the auto reverse. We made due with the archaic technology of taking the tapes out and flipping them over to play the other side.
I had forgotten how l-o-n-g the Lord of the Rings books are. We didn't play them constantly, especially when I had to turn the sound off to hunt for exits and things, but poor Frodo took all weekend to get to his reunion with Bilbo ... and we never got to listen to the bit with Radagast the Brown.
University rocked :) Just as we were leaving from Jake's on Friday, the house was suddenly invaded by the Smiths and Mike with the boys - who I had just bid farewell a little bit before. I assumed everyone was meeting up for some afternoon outing, though Marcus definitely looked like he should have been kept home for his nap. But no- my kind and sneaky friends had collaborated to make a complete 14th century outfit for me and they had come to present it.
Sewing is not my forte. I'm intimidated by anything that requires sleeves to be sewn onto it and a 10 gore dress is overwhelming in time and detail. Giuliana, Sorcha, Colin, Andrew, and Izzy all saw this and generously helped me out. Next stop - finishing some bright yellow stockings and getting shoe making lessons from Andrew!
So I looked rather smart at University this weekend. We had a lovely little site in South Carolina and a nice turn out of instructors and students. In the SCA, nothing compares to University!
We drove back up to Charlotte that night to crash and Bob and Bonnie's house, where I curled up in a quiet corner and promptly fell asleep. I didn't hear a word about Ronald Reagan's death until the next morning.
It was inevitable. Ten years with Alzheimer's is a long time to suffer. I feel a sense of relief for him, thinking of my Granddaddy in the final stages right now and his first roommate at the nursing home who was in his 10th year when he died. The end of Alzheimer's... is heartwrenching. I don't have any idea what happens to us after death but I do believe in some form of the immortality of the soul. And if there isn't... life isn't really worth preserving when you're bedridden, unable to communicate or eat solid food, lost in a fog where people you've known your entire life are unrecognizable.
What brings tears is the picture of Nancy with her cheek pressed to the lid of his coffin. She has been grieving for years now, I am certain. But now it is over, he is gone. I can only guess that she might feel similiar to way I do about Granddaddy - of being slowly robbed of someone so loved and angry that he should be condemned to death by creeping degrees of destruction.
God bless both of them.
