Current count: 22

A friend and some of her children came over today in a great show of support. They helped me clean out my mouse closets! Certainly it was a case of laying her life down for another...

In the process, two more mice were captured and sent to their demise...but only after much screaming by the female parties in the group. Two mice escaped to freedom. More screaming ensued. At least one hole by which they had gained entry is now blocked. Mountains of mouse dirt (whoever came up with that euphamism?) were removed and absolutely no source of food remains.

As any good closet owner, I did use the opportunity of pulling everything out to evaluate if it should return. Some things were ruined. Some just had simply passed their prime with regard to importance to me. At least there is more space in both closets...ought I to be thankful to the mice for that?

During this rather unpleasant process, my brother called to tell me that my grandmother had died. Fighting back tears, we finished the work and they went home.



I have been sitting here, thinking of her. She was someone who lived more in her world than in the real one. She certainly walked her own path. She inspired her students, but she alienated her family. She was bold, but she knew no shame. She was curious, but often violated the most common boundaries. She had admirers and friends, yet none of them knew she never mothered her own children. She would make you howl with laughter and cringe with embarassment. She loved and hated with great passion. She was her own person.

My great uncle will grieve the loss of a sister he deliberately chose to love his entire life. My mother will grieve the words she never spoke, the relationship she never had. My sister will grieve the loss of another piece of our very small family. My brother will stand beside my mother in her loss. And I...I stand in a tangled web of emotions. I ache for Uncle Charlie and my mother. I cry over the grandmother who was fun when I was a child. But...I am strangely numb over the death of the woman who clashed with her granddaughter again and again, who inflicted her animus on more than on occaision, leaving a child puzzled and hurt. And... I am relieved that she will never again inflict pain on her daughter, that her daughter's burden of care for a woman who never truly loved her as a mother should is over.

I have reaped what she sowed in my mother. It was a loveless, critical crop. Still, it is only right to lay aside the hurt and bitterness for what was and was not and remember that which did bring smiles, that which did not hurt, humiliate, or weary.

She was a beautiful woman who found herself widowed at a young age. Only she knows the why of the choices she made.