George Harrison died yesterday. Open the pod bay doors, HAL, i want the fuck OUT!! this year sucks. first, Joey Ramone, then WTC, then my grandma, then her best friend, now George Harrison. Fuck.

Peking Turtle is a great funk band out of Chicago. they put my review from garageband.com on their front page, too! go to garageband and give 'em a good review (select R&B/Funk and listen for the good stuff - that's them)! you'll wet your pants when you hear this stuff. it's schweeet!

okay, here's the latest:

my grandmother's birthday today. she would have been 84. brought flowers and balloons to her grave. the initial flowers that were put there when we buried her, a week and a half ago, were dead or dying. the mylar balloon i gave her when we threw her an early birthday party two weeks ago has now settled almost to the floor. we miss her dearly.

i've been IMing (i hate IM) with a friend i met online a year ago. she's really cool. she's only 19, though, but she's really nice (we both love Beatles (for her it's more of a Lennon thing, though), Buddha, and the majesty and wonder of the Cosmos). i found out she's a bit wilder than i thought. we haven't talked for a while, except in scattered e-mails (i hate IM), but i'm having fun talking to her again. she's in China now. i wish i knew her IRL because she's just a really cool chick (and really purty, too!).

my good friends F & L are splitting up after 8 years of marriage. it's heartbreaking. she's setting herself up for major emotional disaster, though. i worry. they both should get (separate) counselling/therapy/yoga.

i went out with my buddy Cassandra again today. i really like her. i've already mentioned that. i love her deeply. but, i'm actually not the slightest bit jealous of her fiancee, which is new for me! i only want her to be happy, and she is. he's a really cool guy, and i've so glad that she's finally found a Good Guy to be with. still: here i am, pining for her. i want to tell her these things, but i am afraid of the consequences. i don't want to fuck anything up. i'm pretty sure that she wouldn't just up and go for me, but just in case. i do feel that i need to get it off my chest, though.

Damn, why am i always Ducky from Pretty in Pink?

Jackie Corley kicks ass. This girl knows how to write; wrote my socks off, anyway. Lovin' it. Stop by and check her out! Crazy good.

On saturday, my grandmother's great friend Mary Eggleston passed away, too. This year sucks.

i went over to my old friend Sandy's (i mean... Cassandra's) place. We used to be best buds in high school and beyond. The last year that we hung out regularly was 1992, before i moved away to Florida. i used to miss her so. i'm quite fond of her (she's really amazing and i admire her for her talent and soul) and am glad to see that she is doing pretty darn good. She's been through so much, poor girl. But she's engaged now and has a killer apartment and a good job and all that jazz. Her fiancee is cool as shit, too.

Unfortunately, we had a little bit of drinkie-drinkie, and were a tad tipsy. i left because i was feeling rather uncomfortable. i think it was best that i did so. See, i've always been hopelessly in love with her. Okay, i'm not quite THAT pathetic about it, but pretty close, i guess. One of the last times i saw her before i moved to Jacksonville, we actually kissed. When i came back for my vacation five years ago, we nearly kissed again. (We lost touch in between, and i just got up the nerve to call her parents last week.) i think we're one of those "couples" (i use the term loosely) who never actually get together. Well, i have lousy timing. i guess ours is a bittersweet kind of history. But in the end, all i really want is for her to be happy; and i'm glad that she is, and i wish her the best of luck with her fiancee, who, as i've already mentioned, is cool anyway.

We had the viewing last night, and the funeral this morning. My friend Trav was already in Florida (thanks, man!), but his mom came by to both and was immensely sweet. They're cool as hell. My knees were weak the whole time, but i got through it and held up much better than i thought i would. But it was horrible, to have to finalise it so.

This is what i wrote and read as an eulogy:

“Into every Life, a little rain must fall.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

My grandmother saw a lot of rain, yet she was like sunshine to everyone whose life she touched, wherever she went. She was born into poverty in Montrose, Colorado, in 1917. She endured the Great Depression. Over the years she fought and prevailed over a number of illnesses, including multiple cancers. She even had the unenviable task of burying her beloved son Stephen. Yet I say that no one who ever met her went on to have a bad day afterward. Her charm and unique sense of humour lingered on long after she left the room; and I daresay that it will linger on long after today also. She was the light of many a life (including mine), and even in her passing, that light remains unsnuffed.

I inherited her love of music, and these past few days I have found some solace in my grief through at least a couple of songs. “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong, I think best summarizes her outlook on life, underlined with perseverance. She loved the world dearly and always sought to experience its many joys. She loved its inhabitants, and I think that she Understood that we are all just roommates on this Rock, hurtling through space as we struggle to define ourselves and our mission.

Another song that I have found comfort in is “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” by Boyz II Men. One verse has become a mantra for me recently: “I’ll take with me the memories, to be my sunshine after the rain. It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.” And there really are a lot of great memories that we can all take with us on our Journeys through this great, mad thing called Life. Many of them are punctuated by images of her, howling with great fits of laughter. She got a kick out of everything around her, despite the sorrows that sought in vain to overcome her.

I have always found saying goodbye to be a hard thing to do, but never more so than now, when I must say goodbye to my grandmother. Of all the places she loved to visit, I seem to remember her mentioning Hawaii an awful lot, maybe because she pronounced its name “Hawoy” and made it a sort of running joke. (She had a lot of running jokes!) I think that perhaps it is best to say goodbye in the native tongue of that island: “Aloha.”

Am really, really, really sad today.

Tonite, at something near 1 or 1:30 am EST (i think), my beautiful, sweet Grandma passed away.

(i will write a great deal more about her in the coming days and weeks.)

She hadn't been too well this past couple of weeks; she couldn't vocalise or move much. She tried so sweetly to make words the last few days, but couldn't communicate at all. So she just lay there, with her head cocked to one side, mainly sleeping, occasionally waking up. i talked to her a bit, and we met eyes, and i told her a good deal of things that needed to be said ("i love you," "thanks you," and "if you feel you need to slip away...," etc.). She tenderly squeezed my hand as best she could, and had a tear in her eye. That was yesterday (Tues). Today (Wed) (well, yesterday now, as i write this), she couldn't hardly do anything at all. She lay and struggled to breathe. Her breathing became laboured, and we called out the nurse from Hospice of Dayton, got her on oxygen, etc.. Her eyes didn't even move much.

So tonite, after they told us it would happen extremely soon, i sat by her and held her little hand, and rubbed her hand and chest and stroked her hair, and i told her more of those things. i emphasized that if she wanted or needed to let go, that we would be sad, and that it would be okay anyway, because we didn't want her to suffer for us (she was only hanging on for us); i told her not to be sad, or scared; i told her that i loved her so much with all my heart a million times, and i thanked her for bringing us all such joy and happiness. i told her that nobody had ever met her and had a bad day afterwards (which is true), and that we will always love and miss and think of her. i even said the dreaded 'G' word: goodbye. i told her that we had a wonderful 30 years together, and that i just couldn't rightfully ask for any more. i told her that we just had one beautiful Life together, and to cross her fingers, because we may yet share another someday, somehow. i told her that all my friends just loved her so much, and i told her a great many other things. Nowhere near enough, in other words.

i repeated most of these things through the evening, unsure of whether she was conscious or not, or whether she could even hear me. i often kissed her face and hands and never stopped stroking her arms and chest and hands. i put my head down by hers on the pillow and looked into her eyes. i sobbed like a baby. i held her as best as i could.

The last time that i told her that it was okay if she couldn't hold on anymore, i noticed her breathing had become slower right afterwards. i mentioned it. No sooner than i had mentioned it than it stopped altogether. Forever. She died holding my hand, and i know that i was the last image that she saw, if she could see. Right afterwards, i put on "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, and sat, and looked at her, and cried and cried and cried.

My good friend Travis, who is so much my total bro, came over right afterwards. He just up and left his Mom's house and came over. i don't know how, but he just knew that he had to come back over. He would have left right about the time of her Exit. He flew up from Tampa because i sent him a tear-stained (albeit brief) e-mail just the other day. He is such a freakin' great cat; if you're reading this Trav: i love you, man. You are one hell of a great damn Friend, bro.

Of course i'm still freaking out. i can safely say that i have cried at least a pint tonight. She was the sweetest, funniest, strongest, bravest, most determined person i could ever imagine. i love her so dearly. And tonite, i miss her like crazy. i laid down on her bed after they removed her body, and i played that song over and over and grieved loudly for at least a half hour at full tilt.

i find it hard to reconcile her death with my devout agnosticism. i want to believe things. i can hope, but i may not ever Know/Gno, even in my own passing (that is, if We are as i fearfully suspect: only soulless chemicals programmed into mobile meat).

Grandma, honey, if they have the internet wherever you are and you can read this, then please don't be sad; be happy, and know that i will always love you to pieces and miss you dearly. i will think about you every day for the rest of my life. i love you, sweetheart. Good bye...

Yesterday we threw my grandmother a birthday party. Her birthday's the 20th. i just wanted her to have one last special day, and to help her have closure (us too, i guess). We've all said our bittersweet goodbyes at this point, including me.

Today her breathing was labored, and she was making a wheezing moaning with every breath. This went on intermittently all day long, until a few hours ago. Since then, we've had nurses and other professionals come out. She's on oxygen. The unanimous concensus is that she may well pass away tonight. i will be on vigil round the clock over her until she does. God, she's so brave and so strong.

i love my grandma. i really love my grandma. She raised me. i'm going back into her room after a cigarette and a cry; otherwise, i'd tell you exactly how wonderful she is. For now, you'll just have to trust me on this.

i'm not updating the site or going online at all much these days. My grandmother is near death now. i've temporarily dropped out of the all-class reunion project for my high school.

A few months ago, my grandmother's speech had been getting more and more incoherent. She was saying things that didn't make sense, like, "where are the babies?" "who are all those people?" and "I got left behind at the stadium yesterday." She just didn't know what she was talking about. It was horrible, at first trying to explain that she was having 'a dream,' then having to just go along with her, at the expense of feeling like we were hiding reality from her.

Now, her speech is all but completely evaporated.

A few days ago, her health started deteriorating even more rapidly than it had already been. For a couple of days, she couldn't say but the first few words of a sentence. i feel so helpless. i know that she is trying to ask for things, or ask questions, but she couldn't get the words out. She couldn't say more than the first three words. i told her to just give me the basic words (no articles, adjectives, etc.), but she couldn't do that.

Then yesterday, all she could do was move her mouth, as if she was struggling to just do that alone. No words. Today, she couldn't move her mouth at all. Or anything else.

i have never cried so much in my life. i can't stand the thought of her wanting something and not being able to vocalise what it is, and then not getting it as a result. If there were something that would ease her suffering, and she couldn't get it from us...

i wept and told her how much i love her. i thanked her, and told her that she had done good, had lived a good Life. i told her that i would always miss her and love her, and she she would be with me, and i with her, forever. i told her, though i could not tell if she could hear me or not, that i will never ever be ready or willing to let go of her, but that if she needed to leave her suffering behind, then she would have my blessing. All day i wept, and i smothered her with kisses, and i held her fragile little hand.

i both curse every minute of her pain, and rejoice in every sweet second of togetherness.

She's been in and out of consciousness. Her breathing is sometimes labored, and her lungs are making a sound like they're percolating. We've been told that's called the "death rattle."

Why do we love? What purpose is there in loving, when all is for nought, in the End? We are doomed to perish in tears and agony.

Yet i love her with all of my being.