By:
The Dude on the Right
Every family has a change leading to a new chapter in the book that is their
story. Most of
the chapters progress from things like the start of the book, namely the marriage, to the birth of a
child, to the child’s first words, to the child’s first steps, to maybe the
birth of a brother or sister, and much of the cycle usually stays the same for a
while. The chapters switch from the innocence of children, to the family
progressing through the years.
The children in the family grow, to grade school, to junior high, to high
school, and to adulthood. A new book is started as some of those children
create another family, an offshoot of the original story, yet still intertwined
with the original.
And as the book that is a family’s life is similar
for all, there are so many differences. There may be an illness or
accident that takes a child away from a family; There may be financial
hardships that all must deal with; There may be a divorce where mom and
dad, not thinking of the children, do their best, at any chance they can, to
make their children hate the other parent; and then there are families that, for
most of the time, forget the meaning of family.
But with every family story,
probably, usually, definitely, inevitably, there will come the death of a
parent/spouse. Sometimes that death comes as a shock and other times not,
most will agree the death comes to soon, but for some it is way too soon.
With that death the story continues, though, with one character now only in
memory as the next chapter begins with getting back to some normalcy, "some"
because with the passing of a family member things aren’t the normal that was
created a chapter before. The book that is the story of the family is not
complete with the death of one member, more chapters must be written, until that
day when the book can be closed when all of the members have passed on.
Fine,
right now you might be saying to yourself a couple of things, things like "Dude,
what’s with the reflective beginning to this blog, and why haven’t you posted
anything new in over a week?" Well, both the reflective nature of the
opening of this blog and the lack of postings came about because of the passing
of Dad on the Right on January 12th, starting a new chapter in the book of the
"on the Right" family. In the realm of my being old enough to fully
comprehend and have to deal with the loss of an immediate family member, the
recent passing of my Dad is the first. I was 11 when my last grandparent
passed away, and even though I’ve been older for the deaths of some of my aunts
and uncles, and yes, their passings were sad, for me this death thing is kind of
new and a lot different to deal with. Sure, I could probably go see a
shrink to help me "move on" as it were, but what fun would that be and why would
I spend the money when I could just write about here it from time to time.
So,
today’s therapy lesson was two-part. One was to reflect that as much of a
bummer it is to have my dad die, I realized that my family’s story isn’t done
yet and there are already stories to tell of the days immediately following when
he passed, stories like "What the heck is his name, anyway?", "Who knew driving
to a cemetery could be so much fun!", "What’s the deal with the food?", "Niece
on the Right is a rocker!", "That’s not an obituary. This is an
obituary!", and "Everyone says ‘Mom on the Right’ is a hottie." And Mom,
if you’re reading this, don’t worry, one story will remain in the circle of our
family to laugh at from time to time.
The second part of my therapy lesson was
to get back to some normalcy, and what better way then seeing a movie, in this
case "Cloverfield," and write a review.
So the story of the "on the Right"
family continues, and at least right now Sis on the Right has her own
book of her family so that even when the book of the "on the Right" family is
closed, another book will lead people back to our story.
Stories are always to be read, but better to be written, even with a death as part of it.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
