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Leaving and Waving

deannadikeman.com

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Re: Leaving and Waving

#71

Post by sdlkj- »

crabbone wrote: post #67
sdlkj- wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to me this makes it all the more odd - at a glace the top level responses are about how the piece made them emotional/sad or are reminisces about their own parents. What's wrong with that? Because these folks experienced the "best outcome" (presumably to see their parents live to old age) they shouldn't get emotional about it?

"Emotional" is the kind of half-truth word. There are many different emotions. The emotion in question is what's responsible for the response. Saying "emotional" is omitting the important part. It's like saying "involved in road accident" w/o saying whether one caused the said accident or was the victim of. The top-level response in question is disgusting. It's like listening to someone who won a million dollars in a…

No one is asking for your compassion or complaining, they're largely just expressing how the piece made them feel - and again, reminiscing about their own parents.

you're characterizing them as ungrateful, which isn't really coming across for me at all.

Re: Leaving and Waving

#72

Post by jmathai »

username135 wrote: post #68
JKCalhoun wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We reach! I also am the avid family photo archiver (I scan them, tag them, release them). The oldest photo I have is a tintype of a young girl around 1882 or so. She is maybe two years old — and is my great grandmother. I never met her, she had died before I was born. But I have studied her in the photos going all the way back to that tintype of her — somewhere in Missouri. Photos show her with her sisters and parent…

Mind sharing your process? While my parents are still around, I want to digitize the hundreds of photos they have of the previous generations while we can still identify them. It seems like a daunting task!

I considered sending the prints to a company that scans them. I was in LA at one time and toured their offices. Ultimately, I decided to use Photo Scan (an iOS app by Google - not sure if it’s still around).

I grouped photos by general time range and bulk added date/time and location information - knowing it wouldn’t be perfect.

It wasn’t terrible and I got a couple hundred photos scanned in a weekend.

Highly recommend this or another method.

Re: Leaving and Waving

#74

Post by crabbone »

kbutler wrote: post #55
crabbone wrote: post #25

I was recently recommended the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. And while people who recommended this book said they had an epiphany moment reading it, all I saw there was a story of someone who's been served everything in their life on a silver platter. Someone who came to meet the literal end of their life, and yet grown no humility nor a bit of introspection... Until the last page I was waiting for the punch…

I'm sorry that having never had these relationships, you cannot comprehend the loss. In seeing this series and the comments, I see both the sweetness of the relationships and the hint of the grief at their passing. Yes, we recognize that having loving parents is an immeasurable blessing. While their passing is not a world-ending tragedy, it is precisely because we know how precious that interaction is, that we mourn…

Oh but I do. There's no shortage of phony self-centered people in the world around me. Through a little effort and a ton of luck I ended up living and interacting with a lot of entitled people, obsessed with their petty tragedies which they hurry to encase in heavy golden frames and put on public display in the most prestigious art gallery in town.

I live in the world where about half the inhabitants don't eat meat out of "moral concerns" absolutely ignoring the grim reality of most of the world that will eat whatever food they have, and a lot of the time would have none.

People who protest about political causes in lands and cultures they don't understand because a propaganda ad featuring a bruised child in a pile of rubble made them feel sad.

People throwing themselves at the police at another pointless protest rally, only to be greeted at the police station by a mug of hot chocolate and be dispatched home to sleep in their soft and cozy beds.

There's nothing deep or special in this "loss". It make sense to mourn the loss of a life of a young man committing suicide because he was abandoned by the world around him. And I've seen that. It makes sense to mourn the loss of life of a young woman who got hooked up on heroin and died of overdose after an attempted recovery--and I've seen that too. It makes sense to regret the loss of young child's life, whose entire family was killed by poorly planned and poorly executed missile attack. Because such loss of life was avoidable, it took something that had a potential and squandered it. Old people dying of old age is nothing like any of the above. It's what's supposed to happen. It's how I want to go. It's how I want for everyone I care about to go.

I've spent enough time with ER to develop strong feeling of disgust for people who start crying "oh but my mom, she was only ninety-three!" and then latching onto the doctor's sleeves preventing them from tending to other patients. These also tend to show in large family groups and block the entire department for hours by driving attention to themselves with loud wining, arguing with the medical staff and other people in the ER. Demanding unlimited attention due to their "devastating loss". Demanding that the medical staff instantly produce all sorts of forms, perform all kinds of unnecessary procedures, basically, only to drive attention to themselves.

Re: Leaving and Waving

#75

Post by indianmouse »

TheFin wrote: post #13

Well, someone's chopping onions. In a Datacenter. Go figure.

Dear fellow hacker,

Well, It really doesn't matter where you are and I'm pretty sure you ain't one data center rat! :D

All that matters is how you chop onions and whether you chop it or not!

Fun apart, on a serious note, it did brought tears down the cheek.

And I'm not alone as I could see from many other comments and fellow hackers...

Love from India!

Re: Leaving and Waving

#77

Post by [deleted] »

dottjt wrote: post #49

Growing up I didn't really know my father. He was an alcoholic and spent his time with his friends drinking when I was young. My parents separated when I was around 8 years old and I haven't seen my father since, even till this day (I am around 30). I was never really close with my mother. We would eat dinner in separate rooms. We grew more and more distant throughout my teen years and when I was 20 I decided to diso…

[deleted]

Re: Leaving and Waving

#78

Post by patkruk »

I lost both of my parents due to Covid in late January (my Mom) and early February (my Dad) in 2021. I was 38 years old at that time and my parents were in their late 60s. They were very healthy for their age, but it didn't matter. They were gone within a month since their first Covid symptoms. I was on a different continent, international travel was hard during that time (it was still pre vaccines), I had to leave my wife with 2 young kids (6 month old and 4 year old) behind and fly back home alone in order to bury my parents. The OP talks about leaving and waving, and it's very touching. In my case, what almost broke me was the arrival at the airport (after a long 24 hour journey) and for the first time in my life there was nobody waiting and waving (I don't have any siblings). I'm still getting used to the fact that there won't be anyone waiting for me there. Fortunately, I have my own family and I'm greeted with lots of love anytime I come back to them.

Re: Leaving and Waving

#79

Post by patkruk »

dottjt wrote: post #49

Growing up I didn't really know my father. He was an alcoholic and spent his time with his friends drinking when I was young. My parents separated when I was around 8 years old and I haven't seen my father since, even till this day (I am around 30). I was never really close with my mother. We would eat dinner in separate rooms. We grew more and more distant throughout my teen years and when I was 20 I decided to diso…

Brother, you seem to be one strong man and I hope you will never run out of that strength. Sending you a big hug. All the best to your wife, daughter and you. I know it might sound trivial, but your purpose in life is so clear. All you have to do is be there for your girls. Stay strong!

Re: Leaving and Waving

#80

Post by jimmydddd »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #70
dottjt wrote: post #49

Growing up I didn't really know my father. He was an alcoholic and spent his time with his friends drinking when I was young. My parents separated when I was around 8 years old and I haven't seen my father since, even till this day (I am around 30). I was never really close with my mother. We would eat dinner in separate rooms. We grew more and more distant throughout my teen years and when I was 20 I decided to diso…

My mom died a few years ago and I stopped talking to my dad over his Fox News brainworms. I feel like an orphan now. I have a couple siblings but we're distant.

A lot of dads turn into Fox news dads. Comedian Shane Gillis has some funny routines about it. Maybe think of it as a kind of dementia and try to overlook it? Sorry if this sounds trite. Just seems like a shame to lose a relationship over politics.
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