You Can’t Know the End Until It’s Over

I’ve been thinking about how my grandmother influenced my life since we buried her a little less than two weeks ago. Saying goodbye to someone is hard. When that someone is 84 and has lived a long and fruitful life it’s less hard, but it’s still hard in unexpected ways. It’s also beautiful and important.

The first thing that struck me was her legacy. I was struck when I read her obituary. “…survived by 17 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren….” That line struck me pretty hard. What a legacy. I was the first of those 17 grandchildren and I had the privilege of having grandma all to myself for a very short time. Almost all of my cousins were at the funeral. We were only missing one who could not come because he’s in the Navy. It was truly amazing to look around and see my past and my family and all that she had been instrumental in creating.

Ceremony and ritual also struck me. There is much ceremony when Catholics say goodbye. My grandmother was Catholic and so is my entire family on my mother’s side. I don’t happen to be anymore, but I grew up with all of it and at a time like this, I really appreciated the ritual. There was ritual in each of the events, the wake, funeral and burial.

On the first day we had the wake. We all gathered and spent time together remembering.

The simple act of talking with all of my family and remembering was another beautiful component to saying goodbye.

We all brought the things she made us to remember her. One thing my grandma spent time on was making afghans. She made all kinds of them that still keep most of her family warm to this day. She really loved to add colors. The picture below only depicts about half of the family afghans there are many many more spread throughout the land.

My aunts gathered up her kerchiefs and passed around a box of them for all the grandchildren to have a remembrance of her.

At the funeral we all participated in secret Catholic rituals that I won’t go into here, but there was a comfort in the familiarity of the process.

At the burial, it was the coldest, windiest, greyest day. It was there that we left her with my grandpa and said a final goodbye.

Then there was coffee at the church.

And a rose from her final bouquet.

And it was all these events in addition to my Grandmother’s entire life that helped me understand with clarity 2 things I had never quite gotten.

1) The place I came from gave me strength that I have rarely recognized with this much understanding.

2) Something that seemed unlike me has been a very important force in giving me strength to be myself in full force.

I thank my Grandma for all the gifts she has given me, the ones I knew about and the hidden ones I am still discovering. There is no way to predict how anything will end. Until it’s over. But if you can recognize amazing discoveries along the way, you can influence all of it.

R.I.P. Grandma Grace

My grandma passed away this evening.

Here is a picture of her in November 2004.

And a picture of her with the grand kids (and some of their kids) on that same day. It was my sister’s wedding day.

This picture is of me with my mother, grandma and great grandma. Four generations. It’s cute because she had her eyes closed. That happened to my grandma in many pictures. It reminds me of when I was little and spent time with her. I always had to wake her when we watched tv together in the evening as she would fall asleep in her rocking chair. “Grandma, wake up, the show is getting good,” I would call out. And she would open her eyes and tell me, “don’t worry, I’m awake, I didn’t miss a thing.”

Best Arena Show Ever

Weezer was amazing Friday night. I blogged from the event before they took the stage. I had to post again about the actual show because it was that good. It was 2 hours of almost everything they’ve done. They came out in white jumpsuits and started with their older music. Then a few songs in they took the white jumpsuits off and revealed the red jump suits. This is when they began playing from their new album, known as the red album.

They played and played. The energy was high and the showmanship was amazing. Some people may think from the surface lyrics of the latest album that frontman Rivers Cuomo has a huge ego. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Those lyrics are clearly satirical. He was continually giving props to the other band members throughout the show. It’s truly a collaborative group. Everyone in the band sung at least one song. There was lots of instrument changing up throughout the show. They also invited the lead singer and the drummer out from the opening band, Angels and Airwaves, to join them for Undone-The Sweater Song.

And just when you thought, no way they’ll do an encore, they gave the crowd some more. Earlier that day, they had the radio station rustle up a bunch of locals. That group got to come up and play musical instruments onstage with Weezer. They played two songs with Weezer and Rivers even had parts for the audience. The first song, Island in the Sun, included a ‘hip, hip’ lyric and clap part for the audience. For the second song, Beverly Hills, Rivers invited the men to sing the ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I wanna be’ with all the ladies in the house following that up with a ‘Gimme, gimme’ lyric.

Next the local musicians left the stage, Weezer left the stage and a stage hand brought out a record player. He put on a single red album of the song, Heart Songs. Right after the lyrics, “my roommate said, “C’mon” and put a brand new record on it had a baby on it, he was naked on it….” Rivers kicked the record player over in a dramatically Nirvana style and they launched into Nirvana’s Sliver. Then they closed it all down with a great version of Buddy Holly.

We saw Weezer way way back in 1995 with Archers of Loaf opening for them. At that show Archers kicked their butts. Weezer was dealing with new found success then and they had a bad attitude. But since I loved the new album so much and it had been well over a decade we decided it was time to give them another shot at a live show. I’m so glad I did. It was the best arena show I’ve ever seen. They were into it, they gave so much, they shared and they got all of us to participate. It helps that they now have a freaking amazing body of work behind them and a deep well to draw from for content.

As my husband smartly stated when it was done. “Success wears on them well”. Thanks Weezer. Way to be the best rock band ever!

At Weezer

Here we are at weezer. It’s our anniversary concert early this year. 2 opening bands. Way too much time in between bands. No good food.

BUT, it’s my first concert with an iPhone so NONE of that is bugging me. I’m live blogging and taking photos and tweeting and having a great time. Thank you iPhone.

Because I Want to Remember and It’s Relevant

A Winston Churchill quote sums up much of where we are today, and probably where we have been many times.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

-Winston Churchill