Many of you have heard me tell a story about my parents that has already been redefined once. When I was younger (junior high or early high school), one day something happened that resulted in the following being written on the family calendar: “ was right, 19xx.” The next year when copied over the birthdays etc to the new calendar, she copied this over as well. For many years we celebrated the day was right. We thought it was cute.

Years later when I looked back on this (perhaps in retelling this story to someone in an attempt to be cute), I realized that it wasn’t actually a cute story. It was quite insulting, really. ‘s a smart guy. ‘s frequently right. So is . It’s not like one of them was superior somehow (yes, we all have our strengths – what I’m getting at is, it’s not like was always wrong about things and was always right). I realized this after the divorce, however, and things post-divorce look different than when you thought everyone was perfectly happy.

While shopping with had been right (about who knows what at this point), and it got written onto the calendar because he asserted himself enough to point out that he was right and he fought for himself. That was what was really being celebrated.

How many times do you think family/childhood memories can and will be re-written over the course of one’s lifetime?

How about you? What memories have been re-defined for you?

(but couldn’t because my blog was still broken. Also, apologies to and , since this isn’t actually new content to them. I’ll put something up for you shortly.)

My Aunt Shirley died Sunday afternoon around 4. I’ll be going home for the visitation and funeral Thursday through Sunday (carpooling with and her family) and staying at ‘s. Our cousin Katie had called Sunday afternoon and had said the prognosis was “any day now,” which told me over the phone around 3 while I was out shopping with . called while I was driving home at 5 and told me she had died about an hour earlier. The end was really fast, which is good I suppose. She’d only been in hospice care for a little over a week, and they were originally saying “a couple of months,” so I think everyone is a little shocked. actually sounded alright when I talked to him. Everyone was there with her – and , my grandparents, her husband. Her kids are flying in this week (the three that live on the west coast, that is), which probably is why the funeral is so late in the week. and I are thankful, since work and school pressures would have made life very difficult if there wasn’t a weekend nearby.

My aunt was a really great part of my growing up. They lived in the next town over, right by church and we all went to church together (my grandparents too), so I saw them at least once a week, more often later when we were in youth group together, etc. Shirley is three years older than (which is brought up every year at Christmas when gifts are open by age), and got married young and had her son V. She got divorced quickly and was single until she met B, who had three kids of his own (his wife had died in a terrible accident that isn’t really relevant), and he became my uncle and they became my cousins. and I always had an extra gift to open at Christmas because she gave us each an ornament that was just from her (not from the family). She’s the reason my Christmas tree never has any empty space.

She worked in the church office as secretary for a while, and was also the church organist/pianist. Her and B must’ve gotten really close to their 25th wedding anniversary (Katie and are 27 this year, and Katie’s mom died right after she was born, and I think they got married within a couple of years of that). Nine years ago she fought breast cancer (yes, even with her non-existent Johnson breasts like mine) and won. In May she was diagnosed with kidney cancer (a separate incidence, not a recurrence of the breast cancer), had surgery, and started chemo. She was able to be healthy enough to travel to Seattle in July for D’s wedding (Katie’s older brother). She sent me a really nice letter explaining why she couldn’t come to the wedding, and I’m glad I took the time to write her a letter at that point as well as last week to say thank you for the wedding gift. I have no regrets about that.

said “it’s an adjustment” when I asked him how he was doing (or rather didn’t ask him, since it seemed like a stupid thing to ask). He said my grandma is taking it really hard. I’m sure B and the kids are too (and all the grandkids – I think there are seven now, ages 2-10). seems to be alright, but who knows. It’d only been an hour and I’m guessing he was still in shock. I was the first phone call he made.

I’m alright. I have a crap-ton of homework and laundry to do (that I understandably didn’t feel like doing last night) including an unfortunately-timed take-home midterm that will be passed out tomorrow in class. At least we already went grocery shopping for the week and will be around to take care of for me. And thankfully ‘s grandma came over and cleaned on Friday during the day, so the house is clean and I don’t have to think about the vacuuming that I should have done two weeks ago. let me use sick leave instead of vacation leave, so that’s nice, though I start accruing more hours on this next pay period anyways (can you believe I’ve been here almost 5 years?). I can’t wait for the peak load of this semester to be over. I think I’ve got another week or two and it lightens up significantly. OK, I just checked, and it actually doesn’t lighten up until the second week of November. Oh well.

I’m going to go back to studying census data for Eagan (for my Geography homework) and tracking “consumer success stories” and printing mailing labels (for work).