Random Thoughts

The thing about losing someone you love is, well, gosh there are so many things… One is – if it happened yesterday, or if it happened 15 years ago, it still feels like it was too soon. If it was sudden, or slow and expected, it still feels unfair. And if it was a parent, it is heart wrenching. Yes – the traditional “plan” is that the child outlives the parent.  That’s sort of the unwritten expectation.  And yes, reversing that order would likely be much more jarring and awful.  Even so, when it happens, especially if it is your last parent and you are left (an adult) “orphan”, you feel it with every ounce of your being. Which brings me to – today is Johnny Day.  It is the 2 nd anniversary of the death of my dad, John C. Thompson.  Those who were luckily enough to know him know that he was funny (laughed at his own jokes, sometimes so hard that it was difficult for him to get through the joke), liked to trick people (his poor friend Ed, how many times ...

November 17, 2018.   The day my dad died. It’s been exactly 12 months.   It’s still fresh.   And SO much else has happened in the same year.   Dad driving our boat, The Shansu, circa 1983.  This is how I remember him from summers growing up - at the wheel of the boat. I know that “time heals”.   I know that, at some point, I will feel November 17 th creeping up on the calendar and it won’t bring as much malaise and sadness as I am experiencing now.   I know that some time – years or maybe a decade later – I will be able to take time out of “real life” to celebrate Johnny Day just like I celebrate Mary Day every October 20 th .   But this year it all still feels quite raw and painful.   I still have flashbacks to this time last year.   I am currently living in a basement bedroom – the same set up I was in when the hospital called in the middle of the night to tell us Dad had coded.   Last night I decided to confr...

Sometimes, if you are lucky, life puts things in your path that are unexpected.   Things that you would not normally choose to do. Life did that to me today. My sister Annette has wanted to go see a psychic for several years.   The first I knew of it was when both sisters were visiting us in DC, and we drove by a psychic on the main street near us, her neon sign glowing in an otherwise dark window.   “Wouldn’t that COOL to do??   Wouldn’t it be FUN to see a PSYCHIC??” Annette said from the back seat.     Ummm, no…   No, it wouldn’t be “cool” or “fun”.   It would (I jadedly thought) be one or a combination of these things:   hokey, scary, fake, terrifying, and utterly depressing if she told us something awful that was going to happen in the future.   “WHYYY would I want to know the trials and tribulations future me was going to have to suffer?” I thought.   “Can’t we just wait until the bad stuff hits and deal with it then...