Well, it's finally happened. My grandmother died.
It's not like this was unexpected given that she was in her mid-late 90's... it just sucks that we never got to resolve our differences.
Despite the fact that, as I got older, we didn't get along (understatement of the year), I have tremendous respect for her. She had 7 kids, 9 grandkids, and 8 great-grandkids, moved cross-country 3 times (in the late 60's, alone, with kids... impressive), lived in Japan, earned her Masters degree in Gerontology at the age of 70, and the list goes on and on. Very strong woman.
Of course, given the way the cosmos seems to go, this just HAD to occur today of all days. Just when everything'd gotten back to normal.
Friday night, my daughter gets sick. And I mean sick. We'd had poutine for dinner. Do you KNOW what puked up poutine looks like? Trust me, you don't want to. (For the non-Canucks, poutine is french fries smother in either cheese curds or mozzarella, and gravy. Sounds odd, tastes fucking great.)
I'm doin my normal Friday night mutliplayer gaming with some friends when Kiddo comes in, tells me her stomach hurts. Hm. Damn, no Gravol. Well... try n get some sleep, come get me if it gets worse.
Sure enough, it got worse. 15 minutes after that, she horks up this knot (literally... was a big chunk) of semi-digested poutine (looked fucking horrendous... fortunately I'd had the presence of mind to have her take a puke pucket with her, 'just in case'...damn I'm smart sometimes) and kept puking for the next two hours. Finally, at around 4:30 am, we both get some sleep.
The next day, she feels like shit and couldn't keep a damned thing down, still. By Sunday, however, she was pretty much recovered, thank god... poor kid's missed enough school this year as it is.
That night, however....
my wife starts getting the runs.
Dammit.
Sure enough, 2:30 am, she's upstairs pukin' like there's no tomorrow. She actually puked so hard that she bruised her stomach. I couldn't believe it. I've never even HEARD of that happening. So, monday morning she calls in sick after I get kiddo off to school, my wife spends the day either in bed or on the couch watching TLC or channel surfing and we have a pretty low-key day. By Tuesday she's feeling considerably better. She went back to work today, and then I check my email... and there's email from my mom and one of my aunts, letting me know that my grandmother's died.
Just feels like the shit never fucking ends.
I'm really not some bitter freak, by the way. It'd just be nice if we'd get a break. I understand tat no snowflake falls in an inappropriate place and that perhaps all this crap happening over the past two or three years is meant to karmically balance something out, but for fuck's sake, cut us some slack, G(g)od.
Or don't your choice.
Wait. I'm a Buddhist. What the hell am I talking about. 'Life is suffering', sayeth the Buddha.
Well, we're certainly fucking living, you can bet your enlightened ass on that, boy.
Ok, rant over, I'm going to have a smoke (no, still haven't quit, dammit) and go the hell to bed.