Tag Archives: family

Winter Exposes the Nest, and I’m Gone

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We buried my grandparents yesterday. The clouds sat low in the sky and muted the world, leaving just a rustle of wind through the grass in the cemetary. A few words were spoken, and each of us were given the opportunity to place a handful of earth in the grave. There were hugs all around, and then we went down to the church, where services were held. Several family members got up to speak, though I’d chosen not to. At the time, however, I was strongly tempted to. There was a lot of talk about all the community work my grandmother did, and being such an upstanding member of the community, which is absolutely true — she did a lot. My memory of my grandmother, however, is far more simple and personal: climbing into bed in one of the really high beds she had in Lyme, and her coming in with her hair down, and reading to us before we went to sleep. For all the big things she did, that’s the memory that’s been running through my head for the past few days.

After the services, my brother, my cousin Philip, and myself climbed up the bell tower and rang the bell, once for each year of her life (comes out to 30 each plus one or two by the person who let us up there, whose name is currently escaping me). After it all, we went to Dowd’s Country Inn, which is Gammy’s old house, and had a reception and dinner together. It was a good conclusion to the day, and really made it feel more like a celebration of Dick and Mary’s lives than a mourning of their deaths.

After getting home from dinner, I went out to Hanover, and spent some time with my friend Jasmine. I’ve only known her for a week, and I already think she’s absolutely fantastic. She is both forthright and honest, yet compassionate and caring, and simply great to be around, whether for a quick hug or to spend the day with. I’m really looking forward to spending more time with her. I’ll leave it at that, for now.

I’m thinking pretty heavily lately about the lack of deeper thinking I’ve been doing. The notion of spirituality and emotions and mysticism and energy, these things I’ve been touching peripherally but not actually delving into on a personal or deeper level. To some extent, it feels like these topics are knocking on my door, waiting for me to let them in. Maybe it’s time I did.

Grandparentless

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As mentioned in an earlier post, my grandmother passed away on June 17th, 2005. It seems that my grandfather held on for another week, then passed away in his sleep during the night between June 22nd and June 23rd, 2005. While abrupt and unfortunate, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, and it’s a blessing that both were able to go peacefully. I feel privileged to have known them, and will miss them both.

Memorial services will be held on or around July 8th in Lyme, NH.

My Grandmother

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Mary Sharples Bowden Olmsted, my grandmother, passed away today. I’ll update more when I have information on where to send condolences and well wishes.

[Update 6/19/2005: The memorial service will be at the church in Lyme on July 8th. There is an organization that will be accepting donations in lieu of flowers, but I’m waiting to get that information.]

[Update 6/28/2005: Donations in lieu of flowers on behalf of Mary Bowden Olmsted should be sent to:
The Utility Club
PO Box 323
Lyme, NH 03768 ]

Well Wishes

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I just wanted to say really quickly, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, and Happy Birthday, Mickey. I love ya both. Hope it’s a good day for both of you.

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas everyone :)

Sorry for disappearing for a while like that. I have been doing a few things with my time, and I do mean “few”. They have primarily involved doing schoolwork, and coming up with a content management solution I’m actually happy with for Critical Games. Mambo just wasn’t doing it for me… it felt kind of like a Ferrari that was missing a steering wheel… looked awesome, but was a pain to actually drive.

I did a lot more digging than was probably necessary, and finally found NucleusCMS, which is really flexible in what I put in and don’t put in… documentation isn’t the best, and the forums are slow in response time, but after dealing with some of the other systems out there I managed to figure a lot of it out on my own. I migrated it into production tonight. (Whee!)

Non-geekstuff in the extended entry, I swear:
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The Intensity of an Unfettered Soul

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I will be the first to admit, I have always been a prideful man. I am proud of my family, my friends, the capabilities and potentials they have, the things they’ve done, who they are. There are far worse things to be prideful about, but nevertheless it is just as bad as any other thing to be proud of: it creates the illusion of merit based acceptance, instead of accepting purely for the sake of acceptance.

I visited my grandmother today, a woman whom has done more in her life than most. She raised five children, traveled the globe, embroiled herself in community projects, and otherwise occupied herself with always something. She is extremely intelligent, with a degree from Radcliffe; if one were to try to think of an example to sum up the type of person she is, I would recall that she gave my father permission to marry my mother because he managed to beat her at Scrabble. She could do the New York Times crossword puzzle in under an hour (and would do so, regularly).

She is now 90, half paralyzed, and bed-ridden. Her mental facilities (in particular her short term memory) have eroded because of this, and I am simultaneously furious and upset to see her like this.
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