Thanks guys and gals once again. I'm pretty touched by all this. I'm sorry if I'm not the usual chatty self. I think.....guarded is what I am at the moment. Lot of personal stuff with the family, their issues more than mine, but it still hampers things a little bit.
Thanks Brother. Going through all this though, I might beg to slightly differ. Losing is hard....damn hard right now.....but it's cracking me up more when you're reminiscing and remembering all the memories good and bad that you share with someone. Today I've been spending a large chunk of the day and evening and even now (it's nearly 1am my time) poring through dozens upon dozens of albums to find good pictures for a power-point presentation of Dad's long life and his good memories and achievements, sitting here with Mum. We see a photo and go "Oh, that's my Uncle Such-n-such..." who has been deceased for a while, or "That's your Grandmother So-n-so, Mum, from the turn of that century...." and we'd tell the stories behind those pictures. People long gone from this Earth or long disappeared from our lives due to silly disputes and so on.
I remember the old drummer's story (I might be off the tangent about my deceased father telling this, but it has relevance) about the friendship between Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. Gene was going through leukemia, and Buddy visited him. He showered his good friend with flowers and all manners of gifts. When asked why, Buddy simply said something like "I don't give flowers to the dead, I give them to the living!" This was always at the back of my mind when Dad was being visited in hospital and he was still a bit alert, that people, whether they had differences settled with him or not (as he was a bit of a difficult one most times), they gave that bit of their precious last bit of time with him. Their flowers of love. So precious.
So please do that with your loved ones, share those memories, loves, reminiscences, and pearls of wisdom, for you never know when that day comes when you'll never see them again. Shower them with your love, even during the most difficult times, when you can be as polar opposites apart as possible. Family is truly everything.
Thank you all,
Drumbledore.
Bookmarks