The Mandelbear's Musings

Colleen died four years ago, at 04:30 Pacific time, so probably around the time I finish this post. It seems like a long time ago, or maybe just a few days. Or two moves. I'm surrounded by memories. Memorabilia. Every so often I'm struck by how many of my things have stories attached to them; many of them involving Colleen. To be expected -- we were together for half a century.

The world is very different from what it was four years ago, mostly not for the better; there are many things that I miss. And of course people. Too many people.

It's 1pm; we lit a candle for Colleen an hour ago, and toasted her memory, and talked for a bit. N found some purple flowers in the front planter to set in a bowl next to the candle. A candle makes a good focus for giving her a silent update. It's been a nice, quiet remembrance.

I'm going to post this, and sing a couple of songs. See whether I get through Eyes Like the Morning without falling apart.

Colleen, I will always love you.

Last week went by rather quickly -- I don't think it quite registered. Much of my headspace was taken up by GoingSideways.blog and related work in MakeStuff. I even got into flow a couple of times, which is always good. By the second one I had developed a workflow that's pretty painless, and probably about the best I can do given the need for select-and-paste from email and Google Photos. Which in turn is probably the best we can do given that Naomi is off in Africa with only her phone to work on.

I spent most of the rest of the week reading about various WordPress plugins and best practices. Or "as good as you can get" practices, given that WP is a monstrosity written in PHP.

( Content warning: death and grieving )

Top link, under Friday, is how to make a high-performance air filter out of a box fan and four or five furnace filters. (A tip of the hat to siderea for that one.)

( Notes & links, as usual )

Here are some links to sites and pages that I've found helpful over the last three months.

Linguistic note: "widowed" is the past participle of the verb to widow, and is unambiguously non-binary. The verb in its present tense is also non-binary, but picks up a decided gender bias from the noun form. Also see widowed at Vocabulary.com.

Checklists:

• Key contacts and document checklst [PDF] from Wealthcare 4 Widows. I got this from my financial advisor. Written from the POV of a widow, but mostly applies to widowers too if you mentally change the pronouns.
• The Complete Checklist For When A Loved One Passes Away [PDF] from the Neptune Society.
• Newly Widowed Checklist | The Liz Logelin Foundation.
• Some things to Consider[PDF] at Soaring Spirits International

Resource lists:

• Tools + Resources • Wealthcare 4 Widows
• Resources for the Newly Widowed - Soaring Spirits International

The 12 Weeks of Peace: A Free Online Bereavement Program at The Neptune Society: A weekly email "newsletter"; you can also get to all the installments via Week 1: Dealing With Grief. I recommend the Neptune Society in general, but their site is a little tricky to navigate if you want to avoid giving personal information. I can also recommend their 6-week Thinking Ahead email series for your own end-of-life planning.

Today I am grateful, mostly in retrospect, for what is past,...

• William Butler Yeats, who wrote the poem that provides the framework for this post.
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• Bob Laurent, Chris Holosi, Naomi Pardue, and all the other filkers and friends who passed this year. I'm sure I'm leaving some out.
• Abraham Savitzky, my father, who would have been appalled at what the country he fought for has become.

or passing,...

• Lynn Savitzky, my mother, who may very well lose her final battle with cancer before her hundredth birthday in December.
• The American system of government, with liberty and justice for all. It is currently hanging by a thread.
• Knowing what we're up against. Knowing one's enemy is good.

...or to come. We'll have to wait to see whether the last phrase of that poem will be worth being thankful for. The first line may be more prophetic.