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Fuck this weather. This is ludicrous.
I realized something strange while talking to Granddad the other night. He was telling me how one of his friends had, long story short, gone delirious with fever and driven herself out to the middle of the forest in a small town in Wisconsin. A search party of 200+ people finally found her before nightfall. He said that she was incredibly lucky that she had been found. I said that she probably would have been found dead.
I felt odd immediately after saying this, but Granddad said, "Yes, she very well could have," without missing a beat. And I realized why I felt odd. Granddad is 86. For all that he still lives alone and practices law, he lives constantly surrounded by memento mori. My grandmother died from breast cancer when I was one year old. Most of his friends are dead. Death is a daily and very real possibility for him, for all that he is in good health now.
There's an interesting tendency not to speak of death around the elderly. I'm not prone to observing social graces, but even I felt slightly awkward discussing mortality with my grandfather. It's not remote to them--not a joke, not a distant specter, but immediate even in the way that those who have lost people in their young lives are not aware.
I finally defeated Izanami-no-Okami and re-started a new cycle in Persona 4, even though I really should move on to something else. Really I should. Started reading The Left Hand of Darkness from the THEM library.
I have a huge cold sore on my lower lip, and the roof of my mouth is covered in lesions. I've had herpes simplex labialis (like the lips on my face, not the ones between my legs--labia literally means "lips" in Latin) since I can remember--well before pre-school, in any case. So this has happened a lot, my whole life. It never gets any more pleasant. I wonder why my immune system took a hit.
I realized something strange while talking to Granddad the other night. He was telling me how one of his friends had, long story short, gone delirious with fever and driven herself out to the middle of the forest in a small town in Wisconsin. A search party of 200+ people finally found her before nightfall. He said that she was incredibly lucky that she had been found. I said that she probably would have been found dead.
I felt odd immediately after saying this, but Granddad said, "Yes, she very well could have," without missing a beat. And I realized why I felt odd. Granddad is 86. For all that he still lives alone and practices law, he lives constantly surrounded by memento mori. My grandmother died from breast cancer when I was one year old. Most of his friends are dead. Death is a daily and very real possibility for him, for all that he is in good health now.
There's an interesting tendency not to speak of death around the elderly. I'm not prone to observing social graces, but even I felt slightly awkward discussing mortality with my grandfather. It's not remote to them--not a joke, not a distant specter, but immediate even in the way that those who have lost people in their young lives are not aware.
I finally defeated Izanami-no-Okami and re-started a new cycle in Persona 4, even though I really should move on to something else. Really I should. Started reading The Left Hand of Darkness from the THEM library.
I have a huge cold sore on my lower lip, and the roof of my mouth is covered in lesions. I've had herpes simplex labialis (like the lips on my face, not the ones between my legs--labia literally means "lips" in Latin) since I can remember--well before pre-school, in any case. So this has happened a lot, my whole life. It never gets any more pleasant. I wonder why my immune system took a hit.
