Where is the daylight we saved?
My grandfather on my dad's side passed away sometime in the night. He had been diagnosed recently with terminal cancer, and our entire family had planned to fly out next weekend to visit him. The timing seems particularly cruel.
I don't know much of his life history. My memory of him begins about the time when I first began to store permanent memories. Because of the way he carried himself, I like to imagine that long before I came on the scene, he was a famous war general in the Chinese army. He's the type of guy who just seemed like he'd live forever.
I've lost lots of people in my family to cancer, and I think it's particularly heartless and unfair when it attacks the elderly, whose bodies are unable to stand up to the brutal, vicious regimen of treatment that is all that modern medicine has to offer for cancer. Someone who lives to that age should be able to spend their remaining days free of such physical pain and suffering.
I spent part of the day calling airlines to see if they had any bereavement fares for a last-minute flight out to Atlanta this weekend. I've investigated this in the past, but I'd forgotten how low my expectations should have been set. Bereavement fares, for those airlines that even offer any, are merely ridiculous instead of preposterous.
The phone call in the middle of the night--is there any sound more foreboding?
If my perception of time wasn't linear and pointed forward towards old age, if my only memory was of the future not yet lived but most likely instead of a meandering childhood, what would I be doing right now with my life?
This is the month of converging life stressors. Others include having to move to a new house in a week and stressful project presentations at the office. When they gang up like this, it becomes difficult to contain them, to compartmentalize them. While trying to deal with one, I get distracted worrying about the others, and soon they all feel oppressive.
November is getting off to a strenuous start. And then we're compelled to switch our clocks back, for daylight savings time. And suddenly, life goes dark. What are we saving the daylight for? A rainy day? That's every day in a Seattle winter. Can you bank daylight? If not, why not use it while we have it?
Fall back indeed.
I don't know much of his life history. My memory of him begins about the time when I first began to store permanent memories. Because of the way he carried himself, I like to imagine that long before I came on the scene, he was a famous war general in the Chinese army. He's the type of guy who just seemed like he'd live forever.
I've lost lots of people in my family to cancer, and I think it's particularly heartless and unfair when it attacks the elderly, whose bodies are unable to stand up to the brutal, vicious regimen of treatment that is all that modern medicine has to offer for cancer. Someone who lives to that age should be able to spend their remaining days free of such physical pain and suffering.
I spent part of the day calling airlines to see if they had any bereavement fares for a last-minute flight out to Atlanta this weekend. I've investigated this in the past, but I'd forgotten how low my expectations should have been set. Bereavement fares, for those airlines that even offer any, are merely ridiculous instead of preposterous.
The phone call in the middle of the night--is there any sound more foreboding?
If my perception of time wasn't linear and pointed forward towards old age, if my only memory was of the future not yet lived but most likely instead of a meandering childhood, what would I be doing right now with my life?
This is the month of converging life stressors. Others include having to move to a new house in a week and stressful project presentations at the office. When they gang up like this, it becomes difficult to contain them, to compartmentalize them. While trying to deal with one, I get distracted worrying about the others, and soon they all feel oppressive.
November is getting off to a strenuous start. And then we're compelled to switch our clocks back, for daylight savings time. And suddenly, life goes dark. What are we saving the daylight for? A rainy day? That's every day in a Seattle winter. Can you bank daylight? If not, why not use it while we have it?
Fall back indeed.