Done yesterday (20090508)

( raw notes )

The main thing is that Colleen continues to recover. After spending Thursday in bed recovering from having overdone things on Wednesday, she did as much or more on Friday and is still in pretty good shape.

I made our reservations for brunch on Mother's Day. Which is tomorrow! Eeeep!

Segmented sleep is still working for us, and I seem to be getting almost enough sleep. On the down side, I'm still having a lot of trouble squeezing a walk into my day.

Between the two of us we managed to get enough information about our friends up North that we're not nearly as worried about them as we were on Thursday, though there are still reasons to be concerned. I still have a River post or two that need writing.

I have the vague feeling that there must have been more going on, but I'm not going to worry about it. Some of that was at work, which was interesting but not something I can talk about yet.

QOTD

Colleen: "You're my purrrrrrrrfect Bear and I love you."

Me: "You're purrrrrrrrrplexing, but I love you anyway."

River: For my grieving friends

I don't really like having to post about grieving, but it has a way of coming up. It's a couple of weeks short of what would have been my Dad's 90th birthday, and a lot of my friends are still shell-shocked from the death of John Caspell, so I guess it's appropriate.

I said a lot of what I wanted to say about grieving in this post almost a year ago. It's still worth a read -- the gist of it is my standard advice: everyone does their grieving differently, at their own pace, and the goal is not forgetting but acceptance: coming to terms with your loss. I'll wait while you go back and read it.

But there's always more, isn't there?

My choice of the phrase "shell-shocked" up there was deliberate. It originally came out of WWI to refer to a range of syndromes, including what we now call posttraumatic stress disorder.

... a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma. This stressor may involve someone's actual death, a threat to the patient's or someone else's life, serious physical injury, an unwanted sexual act, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity, overwhelming psychological defenses.

One of the common reactions to a sudden loss is survivor guilt. It doesn't have to be based on having survived an actual disaster. Especially if you have a low opinion of yourself to begin with, you can start with a friend's death and a passing thought of "why him and not me?" and spiral downward from there.

The universe isn't fair. The universe doesn't give a damn whether your friend was more worthy, or more deserving of life and happiness, than you are. Your friend and the drunk in the SUV, the pebble in the roadway, the patch of black ice, the random blood clot, the cosmic ray particle, were just there in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you weren't.

It's not your fault.

As the Mikado said, "I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances."

I know that isn't a very cheering thought when you've just lost a dear friend. And it may well be the hardest thing you'll have to come to terms with, but there it is. I never said grieving would be easy.

I sing the Rollycat electric

Colleen wanted to go to ABC Medical to look at scooters. She immediately fell in love with a Pride Go-Go Elite Traveller 3 Wheel Scooter, which they wanted some $1500 for. A little outside our price range, seeing as Costco has a somewhat similar scooter for $799. We nearly bought it anyway, but one arm was damaged and wouldn't be in until later in the week; we left my contact info and went out for a drive.

When we got home, I found it for $899 at 1800wheelchair.com. Much as I like to buy things locally, $600 is a lot of money. They quote delivery as 3-5 days, so it ought to arrive before we need it next weekend.

Colleen and pocketnaomi can have scooter races at Baycon.