Homer's Travels: Passings And Changes

Saturday, April 06, 2013

Passings And Changes

I figured I should put a post together so I looked to see if there was a theme to my week gone by.   The only thing that I could see is death.

The week started with Easter which has, as one of its components, death.  Of course Easter is about much more, specifically everlasting life and change.

Later in the week Iain M. Banks, the author of the Culture series (of which I have read eight of the nine books), announced that he had been given a prognosis of only months to live.  Makes you wonder what you would do if you found out you would not live out the year.  Would I go out and travel the world and live my last time on this Earth to its fullest or would I crawl up into a ball in some dark corner and wallow in a pool of self-pity?  I think that's a question nobody really knows how to answer until it actually happens to you.

Next came the death of Roger Ebert.  In the days when I was still a fan of going to the movies I remember watching Siskel and Ebert every weekend to see what movie(s) I should go to watch the following weekend.  When he left the show after his cancer diagnosis I stopped watching and sometime later I lost interest in movies (at least going to the movies at a theater).  Strange how the death of a celebrity can bring on the  feeling of sadness I experienced when I heard the news.

The week ended with me going to the funeral of my Uncle (my Dad's brother).  Over the past ... decades ... yes, decades!  When did years become decades? ... Over the past decades I have drifted away from my father's side of the family.  Some of that was distance - moving to California took me far away from most of them.  Some of it was deliberate on my part.  After my Dad's death I found I had little in common with that side of my family, just as I had little in common with my Dad, and I took another direction away from them.  I went to the funeral to pay respect to my Uncle.  I felt an obligation as he had taken the time to attend my wedding ... and he was a good man.

In the past I would have not handled this week well.  Especially my Uncle's death.  But I'm ending this week unhindered and fairly content.  I have been changing over the past year or two.  I'd thought that my attempt at becoming more positive had been an utter failure but I realise now I was just impatient.  The move is slow, steady, plodding at times but progressing.  I am sad for my Uncle ...and even a bit sad for Roger Ebert and Iain M. Banks ...  but I am handling it better and looking ahead instead of dwelling in the past - a most positive thing to do.

4 comments:

  1. You are positive! But you're right, it did feel like the week of death here too. I'm glad you're handling it all so well.

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    1. Miss McC: Yes I am and I like it. Not always there but more often than not I am positive. Definitly an improvement. Thanks.

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  2. I find it helps to try and think of the lives people lived, and not dwell on their being gone. Or, at least, that's what I try to do...

    If I had only a few months to live, I'd probably just sell everything I own and spend the rest of it hiking. Tis my way.

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    1. GH: Yeah ... I think I would do that too ... leaving some money for the Wife to live on of course.

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