death in the family

A philosophical friend of ours passed away in 2019.  I only learned of it in February of this year.  He was one of the most influential people in my life.  It wasn't that we spent so much time together or were very close in the last decade or so but during college we struggled though a number of issues together and pressure tested some lived philosophy.  In the last message I had from him, a few months before his death, he was reminiscing on those times fondly.  My emails from there on out went unanswered and I didn't know why.  He wasn't the most consistent communicator over the years so I didn't think too much about it.  He had expressed the desire to meet up next time I was in town so when I didn't hear from him I searched the internet and found his obituary. It was an odd way to learn of a death.  And it's odd to mourn, years late.

Here's one of the last images I sent him (never received).  He always loved the Tetons. Rest in peace, friend.  I wish we could have one more meeting of minds, it might have made a difference.

Vonnegut's requiem

Written shortly after he heard his first wife was dying from cancer.

My prayers are unheard,
But Thy sublime indifference
    will ensure
that I not burn in some
    everlasting fire.
Give me a place among the
    sheep
and the goats, separating
    none from none,
leaving our mingled ashes
    where they fall.
... O Time, O Elements
Grant them rest. Amen.

to the fates

To The Fates

Grant me a single summer, you lords of all,
  A single autumn, for the fullgrown song,
    So that, with such sweet playing sated,
      Then my heart may die more willing.

The soul, in life robbed of its godly right,
  Rests not, even in Orcus down below;
    Yet should I once achieve my heart's 
      First holy concern, the poem,

Welcome then, O stillness of the shadow world !
  Even if down I go without my
    Music, I shall be satisfied; once
      Like gods I shall have lived, more I need not.

Hölderlin (trans Christopher Middleton)

the doubly difficult startup life

Alexis Ohanian shares his reflections on the personal tragedies he faced during the first few years of Reddit. Running your own company can be overwhelming by itself, when it's coupled with family problems ... oy vey.

the nursing home

I might have mentioned earlier on this blog that my grandma is suffering from dementia. Recently her condition has been deteriorating quickly and my family has decided to move her into an assisted care facility. My parents have been going the extra mile taking care of her in their home (my mom's a nurse) but she frequently wakes up at night and stays up for hours, tries to wander off. Often they'll take her somewhere and she'll refuse to get out of the car (also for hours). She'll say she wants to go to mass and that she needs to get home to take care of her mother. She seems to change the time period she's living in (mentally) frequently.

Anyhow, when I was a kid, my mom and I lived with an old lady for a while. Her name was Adelaide Bartlett. Once she got a bit older she also had to move into a nursing home. We used to give her rides to church quite a bit during that time. What I mainly remember is her wanting to die and asking why God hadn't taken her. Her conversation was singularly focused on that theme. When she died, I inherited a few of her things, mostly antique trinkets. Among the things was this poem. Adelaide, unlike my grandma, remained lucid until the end. She probably wrote this not long after she first entered the nursing home (since it doesn't overly emphasize the "I want to die" theme).

The Nursing Home

The nursing home is a 
place to retreat
And all our lives
are in defeat

So often we just sit and wait
Wondering what will be our fate

The workers there are 
too few, the best they can
we hope they do.

death

It seems to me that one of the jobs of a philosopher is to remind people about death and the shortness of life once in a while. And since I like to play a philospher on the internets here's a reminder courtesy of the offbeat sub:



There's also this article on obituaries (via Arts and Letters Daily).

i'm sick -- abscessed tooth

Somehow I got an infection in the gum below a tooth where I'd had a root canal. I finally got some pain medication and antibiotics but I'm still barely functional.

When I'm in a lot of pain I feel like death isn't so bad.

--

My grandma woke last week in a lot of pain, she stayed lying in bed, crying, for an hour.

She realized, as many of us will, that these bones, this shell, can only heal itself so many times.

The pain she feels now will be with her until the end.