Thank you one and all
This is by way of a big Thank You.
So many left messages after my previous scribble that I couldn’t possibly think up replies to each without sounding trite, or even worse, looking like a cut and paste job.
So thank you everyone. Anyone who has suffered a bereavement will know that messages of sympathy do mean a lot.
Incidentally I would like to thank Mac for his little post. You all know Mac and his inimitable style?
Another I have to mention is S.K.Orr. I came across his site when he commented here a short while ago and I have been reading his older posts ever since. I love his writing style and can easily picture his rural rambles with Jinx [his dog]. He describes me as “irascible” [I would say “world weary” is a better fit?] where he is the opposite. Nothing seems to annoy him except maybe snakes and Neighbour’s cattle. Even then I think the snakes tend to get off lightly.
I am just back from the funeral. It was a lovely service, if you can classify funerals as lovely. Daughter surprised everyone by giving an off-the-cuff speech which was poignant and happy at the same time, as only she can do. Pandanic regulations were still in force but there were few masks and at least two rooms full of friends and relations [at 50 to a room]. For a chap with Cerebral Palsy, Seán had one hell of a lot of friends, relations and admirers.
I have said my farewell, but never goodbye.
He lives forever in my memories.
So glad you posted this. You’re a fighter, which I had already inferred from your writings. This is a good thing. Your daughter is a fighter, too. I believe she showed remarkable grace to be able to stand up and speak at her son’s wake. I know I wouldn’t have been able to be composed in such a situation. I can’t even imagine what all of y’all are enduring right now, with the pain and the grief and the loss.
I’m also glad you mentioned my use of “irascible” to describe you. I’ve been thinking of it, and I think I misused the word in your case. You’re not “easily” angered. You have a normal man’s normal reaction to bullshit situations and people. That’s not irascible. It’s sensible. Wish I hadn’t used that word. See what happens when an uneducated man starts trying to toss around polysyllabic words? You have every right to be weary of this world.
And for the record, brother, I get annoyed fairly easily. I can go from zero to sixty a lot faster than I did in my younger years. I think I’m like my mother…the older she got, the less she gave a shit about who she pissed off when they wronged her. I guess my writing style is just a bit calmer than my interior life.
Hah! I’m fine with “irascible”. It’s a hell of a lot better than some of the things Herself calls me.
Actually I’m not angry with the modern world. I’m more bemused than anything. How can you take things seriously when the entire planet is scared of imminent warming and a simultaneous ice-age? I can only laugh at a society which bans clapping [because it might scare someone] or bans gender specific pronouns because some people don’t know what they are? The list of absurdities is endless. I feel very sorry for the Grandkids though as they’ll have to live in the crazy world we are creating.