RIP William Knight Ralston

Got back from Whistler this afternoon. Heading down to Portland tomorrow to be with Grandma Nancyclare, Uncle Stu, Uncle Dave and Tony, and Uncle Bill. My cousin, Nick - Bill's oldest kid - is coming up to join us on Monday. It'll be nice to see him, and one of the last times for a while because he finally ships off to Iraq in January. Hooray for the Marines. But it was his choice, and he got into Annapolis, so...

My grandma seems to be doing pretty well. She said she made lots of friends at the hospital who she'll never see again. And they kept her really up on everything, so she was in the know. She also said it was interesting because she's never been that close to death before and being there was fascinating in a way. She's been grieving since the summer, when his aortic anyuerism was first discovered and it was decided they couldn't operate on it because his heart was too weak. So, we've known this was coming for a while.

As for me, I've both not had it fully hit me and also have kinda switched off the side of me that recognizes and reacts properly to negative things. This both makes life easier and also creeps me out.

Anywho, I hope you all had a great holiday if you celebrated today. I'm off to watch the only episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force I actually like and sleep.

Planning

We got here (to my Grandma's huse) just in time to help come up with the program for the service. I guess they need to bring a biography and program plan over to the home tomorrow morning, so my mom and her brothers and her mom are in the other room trying to decide what exactly we're going to do.

I can just remember Granddaddy's funeral, back in the summer before 8th grade. I read a Robert Service poem, as he is both of our favorite poets, and we both had a thing for "The Cremation of Sam McGee". Also, when I walked into the kitchen with dishes from dinner, my dad and I looked at each other and started singing the chorus to "I'll Fly Away." A bunch of cousins, along with my dad and I sang that and "Amazing Grace" at Granddaddy's funeral because he was a pilot. What's funny is that even though I was closer to Bops and I have many many more memories of him (because Granddaddy had a stroke when I was pretty little and I really only have one memory of him from before it) I don't feel I have anything I can sing or play or say at the service on Monday. They don't want to make it overly religious (which I, ironically, could actually play along with really well), and they can't really think of anyone who would be able to speak at it, even among themselves.

All I can really think of is how even though I'm the third cousin, I'm the one who named him Bops. I wasn't able to say Grandpops when I was little, so it just came out as Bops, and it always stuck. I'm not sure that this is completely true - actually I just confirmed it and they all have decided that I have to speak now. It came about because one night when he and my grandma were babysitting, he went back to check on me, and I was alseep (as a baby) and so he went to creep out, but he stepped on a creaky part of the floor and little me, waking up upset, saw him sneaking out and screamed "BOPS!!!" as I couldn't pronounce what my two older cousins called him.

Damn, he was so hilarious, I can't believe he's really gone, and not just in the other room watching T.V. or taking his before-dinner nap. Time to finish that third glass of wine.

"I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away. When I die, hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away..."