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The Tragedy Post - Look Away, Look Away (also non-tragedy items that are safe..)
1. Mother's close friend, Anita, (aka "MG" or "Mean Girlfriend") passed away at 11 am this morning. They took her off the feeding tube and respirator and let her go. She couldn't function, and couldn't close her eyes. She weighed less than fifty pounds. The operation to remove the kidney had gone badly, apparently the tumor was much larger than they realized, and had spread to the lymph glands. It was stage 3 or 4 cancer.
Mother went with two of Anita's friends to Savannah, and they sat with her, and her niece until she passed quietly in her sleep. It took about four hours, they got there at 7 am, and the tubes were removed around 9 am, they left when the tubes were removed, and came back in to see her pass.
It's terribly sad. Anita was in her early 70s. Younger than Mother. Kind of shocking in a way, considering I honestly thought she'd survive Mother.
She's been a close friend off and on of mother's since roughly the late 1990s? We've known her for almost 28 years or thereabouts. And she lost her husband around the same time Mother lost my Dad, and provided Mother someone to commiserate with. Mom is going through the five stages of grief again.
Grief doesn't stop. Not really. Because when someone or anything living really dies - they leave behind a negative space that can't be filled. We miss what was once there. And every time we brush against that negative space it aches inside. Like a tear in the soul or the energy. You can't fill it with something else. And you can't forget it. You just kind of try to cope? Maybe walk around it at times, or walk through or try to embrace it. I don't know.
But someone dying is so much harder than someone just moving away or leaving my life. It's like, damn, they aren't here any longer. I will never see them again. That's hard to wrap my head around at times. See? Negative Space.
As an aside, I feel at times when I tell stories of my relationships with people in these posts, you see the relationships ebb and flow and change. As do I. It's poignant in a way. If I ever decide to read back on it.
2. I'm in spreadsheet hell at work. I've decided to create logs of the things I'm doing, to keep track of the work and to give myself something to do.
The only problem is I'm horrible at keeping track of stuff in spreadsheets or lists - because I have a tendency to forget I have them or that I'm doing them or where I put them. I'm the sort of person who will write up a grocery list and forget to bring it. I have a calendar pill container to keep track of the pills I take each day - because otherwise I'll forget to take them. Sometimes I take them out of the wrong day and get confused.
I suck at outlining for this reason - I start out well enough, then forget where I'm going with the outline and get caught up in the numbering and lettering scheme. I'd have made a horrible academic, and a horrible lawyer, both are into outlining.
3. Commute
5:30 pm Tuesday - Wales: I'm waiting for the bus, because someone was struck by a train at 15th Street Station.
8:30 pm Tuesday - Me: Oh, just two hours later they were struck by a train at 4th Avenue and 9th Streets..
10 AM - Wedensday- Wales: There were 4 people struck by trains within a 24 hour period in Brooklyn yesterday.
This is getting bad. Frigging Transit needs to get its act together. To date? Every day there are five to ten trains removed from the tracks due to mechanical difficulties, five to ten people hit by trains due to being on the tracks, five to ten people being disruptive in the trains or stations causing delays, five to ten trains emergency braking for no reason cited...and they are still having signal problems.
Hence the reason I don't go anywhere on weekends, and don't venture outside of my commute much except for doctor appointments.
Hmm. I'm thinking of moving somewhere upstate, that's walkable. Assuming such a place exists. It is New York, so possible. I prefer the commuter trains to the subways for well, reasons I can't go into.
4. Bridge Collapse.
Baltimore Bridge Collapse
We've been discussing this at work, mainly because some of us have done bridge construction contracts/procurements and know what is entailed.
It was a flimsy bridge - came down like a toy bridge when that container ship hit it. Also a fairly recent one, all things considered, built in 1975. (Most bridges are older than that.) Granted the 70s weren't known for quality construction methodology.
They are going to replace it - kind of have to - it serves over 30,000 commuters daily. It's has four lane highway on it. And the workers on the bridge were able to clear it and close the bridge to traffic prior to its collapse, saving thousands of lives, but alas, not their own. eight workers were on the bridge filling pot holes when it collapsed, two appear to have survived.
5. Meanwhile, there was a fire in my neighborhood that spread from East Third Street between Beverly Road and Avenue C - where about three homes caught fire and two were completely destroyed. One woman was in critical condition. I found out about it on the neighborhood FB page, mainly because I heard the news copters overhead and wondered what was going on. The woman whose mother was in critical condition and caught in the fire - posted about it. Apparently the house next door caught fire, and it spread to their house and demolished it.
Brooklyn Fire
The fire broke out in the rear of a three-story home on East Third Street between Avenue C and Beverly Road in the Kensington neighborhood just before 5:45 p.m.
"I saw the fire department. They were looking inside and they were breaking the house's, like, the fence and everything just to, I guess, have access inside and to see if anyone was inside there," one neighbor said.
"I seen so much smoke and it was just, it was surreal. I got worried," neighbor Ismail Sekic said.
FDNY officials say high winds and the building's wood frame contributed to the fast spread of the fire. Flames climbed into the second floor and attic.
"Our members moved in very aggressively, very deliberately with multiple hand lines and we were able to find one victim on the first floor," FDNY Chief Kevin Woods said.
The woman was taken to a local hospital in serious condition. An EMS official said she would likely be moved to a burn center.
Fire officials say flames also extended into a neighboring wood-frame home and spread into all three floors, including the cellar.
6. My apartment smells oddly of soap. I think this is due to the lighting of various candles to cleanse the apartment of various smells from cleaning out the fridge? And people cooking next door and in the apartments around me? It worked, now I just smell soap. But I didn't realize the candles smelled like soap when I bought them.
Mother went with two of Anita's friends to Savannah, and they sat with her, and her niece until she passed quietly in her sleep. It took about four hours, they got there at 7 am, and the tubes were removed around 9 am, they left when the tubes were removed, and came back in to see her pass.
It's terribly sad. Anita was in her early 70s. Younger than Mother. Kind of shocking in a way, considering I honestly thought she'd survive Mother.
She's been a close friend off and on of mother's since roughly the late 1990s? We've known her for almost 28 years or thereabouts. And she lost her husband around the same time Mother lost my Dad, and provided Mother someone to commiserate with. Mom is going through the five stages of grief again.
Grief doesn't stop. Not really. Because when someone or anything living really dies - they leave behind a negative space that can't be filled. We miss what was once there. And every time we brush against that negative space it aches inside. Like a tear in the soul or the energy. You can't fill it with something else. And you can't forget it. You just kind of try to cope? Maybe walk around it at times, or walk through or try to embrace it. I don't know.
But someone dying is so much harder than someone just moving away or leaving my life. It's like, damn, they aren't here any longer. I will never see them again. That's hard to wrap my head around at times. See? Negative Space.
As an aside, I feel at times when I tell stories of my relationships with people in these posts, you see the relationships ebb and flow and change. As do I. It's poignant in a way. If I ever decide to read back on it.
2. I'm in spreadsheet hell at work. I've decided to create logs of the things I'm doing, to keep track of the work and to give myself something to do.
The only problem is I'm horrible at keeping track of stuff in spreadsheets or lists - because I have a tendency to forget I have them or that I'm doing them or where I put them. I'm the sort of person who will write up a grocery list and forget to bring it. I have a calendar pill container to keep track of the pills I take each day - because otherwise I'll forget to take them. Sometimes I take them out of the wrong day and get confused.
I suck at outlining for this reason - I start out well enough, then forget where I'm going with the outline and get caught up in the numbering and lettering scheme. I'd have made a horrible academic, and a horrible lawyer, both are into outlining.
3. Commute
5:30 pm Tuesday - Wales: I'm waiting for the bus, because someone was struck by a train at 15th Street Station.
8:30 pm Tuesday - Me: Oh, just two hours later they were struck by a train at 4th Avenue and 9th Streets..
10 AM - Wedensday- Wales: There were 4 people struck by trains within a 24 hour period in Brooklyn yesterday.
This is getting bad. Frigging Transit needs to get its act together. To date? Every day there are five to ten trains removed from the tracks due to mechanical difficulties, five to ten people hit by trains due to being on the tracks, five to ten people being disruptive in the trains or stations causing delays, five to ten trains emergency braking for no reason cited...and they are still having signal problems.
Hence the reason I don't go anywhere on weekends, and don't venture outside of my commute much except for doctor appointments.
Hmm. I'm thinking of moving somewhere upstate, that's walkable. Assuming such a place exists. It is New York, so possible. I prefer the commuter trains to the subways for well, reasons I can't go into.
4. Bridge Collapse.
Baltimore Bridge Collapse
We've been discussing this at work, mainly because some of us have done bridge construction contracts/procurements and know what is entailed.
It was a flimsy bridge - came down like a toy bridge when that container ship hit it. Also a fairly recent one, all things considered, built in 1975. (Most bridges are older than that.) Granted the 70s weren't known for quality construction methodology.
They are going to replace it - kind of have to - it serves over 30,000 commuters daily. It's has four lane highway on it. And the workers on the bridge were able to clear it and close the bridge to traffic prior to its collapse, saving thousands of lives, but alas, not their own. eight workers were on the bridge filling pot holes when it collapsed, two appear to have survived.
5. Meanwhile, there was a fire in my neighborhood that spread from East Third Street between Beverly Road and Avenue C - where about three homes caught fire and two were completely destroyed. One woman was in critical condition. I found out about it on the neighborhood FB page, mainly because I heard the news copters overhead and wondered what was going on. The woman whose mother was in critical condition and caught in the fire - posted about it. Apparently the house next door caught fire, and it spread to their house and demolished it.
Brooklyn Fire
The fire broke out in the rear of a three-story home on East Third Street between Avenue C and Beverly Road in the Kensington neighborhood just before 5:45 p.m.
"I saw the fire department. They were looking inside and they were breaking the house's, like, the fence and everything just to, I guess, have access inside and to see if anyone was inside there," one neighbor said.
"I seen so much smoke and it was just, it was surreal. I got worried," neighbor Ismail Sekic said.
FDNY officials say high winds and the building's wood frame contributed to the fast spread of the fire. Flames climbed into the second floor and attic.
"Our members moved in very aggressively, very deliberately with multiple hand lines and we were able to find one victim on the first floor," FDNY Chief Kevin Woods said.
The woman was taken to a local hospital in serious condition. An EMS official said she would likely be moved to a burn center.
Fire officials say flames also extended into a neighboring wood-frame home and spread into all three floors, including the cellar.
6. My apartment smells oddly of soap. I think this is due to the lighting of various candles to cleanse the apartment of various smells from cleaning out the fridge? And people cooking next door and in the apartments around me? It worked, now I just smell soap. But I didn't realize the candles smelled like soap when I bought them.