I gather this sort of thing happens a lot

[winterbadger]

I was vacuuming the place last night (part of my master plan to have it not look like a hurricane just hit--progress still needs to be made on this), and I got to the doorway to the upstairs. There's a rolled-up map there that I had to move so as to vacuum that bit of floor.

And then I remembered that the rolled-up map is a map of South Asia that I'd picked up at work, a copy of the one that I have up in my cube (because I handle the cases we work on from that part of the world). I'd thought that Dd would like a copy of it, because he'd spent time there in the Air Corps and always remembered it fondly. And, yeah, I didn't have a chance to give it to him before, well, everything happened. :-(

I didn't burst into tears (though that's quite possible with me--you know us nervy, emotional Dutch-English hybrids). But I did sort of stop suddenly and say "Oh!" and feel very sad. And now when I look at the identical map that's in my cube, I feel sad again.

Comments

awww :(

[kmpleet.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I lost my father last year, and I still get sad/teary-eyed/burst into tears whenever I see something special to him or that reminds me of him. It's just something that happens.

My husband always tells me that the people you lose aren't ever really gone. There's a part of them that stays with us. It helps me to hear, even if it doesn't make me happier.

K

Re: awww :(

[winterbadger]

Thanks! Yes, I'm not really one for thinking that there's some other place that people go to who die; my personal feeling is that that's something we invent to make *us* feel better. But I think it certainly is true that people we love live on in our memories and in the things we do (work, art, volunteering, teaching, child-rearing) that we do in memory of them or with them and the things that they valued in mind.

Re: awww :(

[kmpleet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much what we believe...not some, like, ghost or angel or spirit or something, but rather the influence they had on us when they were here, the things that they taught us, the experiences we had with them that shaped us both, etc....that type of thing.

So, it does help to think that in the way the fact that we touched eachother's lives means that they are still here.

[histoire68.livejournal.com]

I had a message from my mom on my voicemail that I couldn't bear to erase and couldn't bear not to erase - that went on until I moved out a few months later. It sucks. I'm sorry.

[winterbadger]

Thanks!

[wolfette]

the oddest things will set you off. When my mum died, I found myself crying over songs on the radio - songs I knew she DIDN'T like!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

:0(

hugs x

[winterbadger]

Thanks, 'fruit!

[silme.livejournal.com]

I understand completely. Certain things will make me think of my parents, and sometimes it's painful to realise they're not around any longer. {hugs}

[winterbadger]

Thanks! I think that's going to be my reaction for a while--"Oh, I should remember to tell...oh. Crap." :-(

[dativesingular.livejournal.com]

:/

I hate it when our feelings catch-us off guard like that.

[winterbadger]

Indeed. Well, at least it tells us we;re still alive, neh? :-)

[noting-nothing.livejournal.com]

:( Things get ya at the strangest moments, don't they? Take care of yourself x

[winterbadger]

Thanks! :-)