The Vent and Rant Thread

[pdurrant]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Hitch]

I'm sorry for your loss. I too and the "Last Man Standing" in my family; it's odd to be the orphan, isn't it?

It's as though an entire world's entryway is now closed to you. All those stories you laughed about, all those memories you could share with someone who lived the same life, or in the same house, growing up....that's all gone. You'll never again laugh together about the time Dad sold the camper van to some guy, and forgot that Grandpa (in his post-crematorium ashy state) was still inside the dashboard storage spot, and you made me go steal him back from the new owner. My first big criminal enterprise!

The realization of that is the first odd reaction I had to it. You can never talk about this again, or that--the people who shared that world with you are all gone. Weird, hunh?

Hitch

[issybird]

I'm so sorry about the loss of your brother.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm sorry for your loss. I too and the "Last Man Standing" in my family; it's odd to be the orphan, isn't it?

It's as though an entire world's entryway is now closed to you. All those stories you laughed about, all those memories you could share with someone who lived the same life, or in the same house, growing up....that's all gone. You'll never again laugh together about the time Dad sold the camper van to some guy, and forgot that Grandpa (in his post-crematorium ashy state) was still inside the dashboard storage spot, and you made me go steal him back from the new owner. My first big criminal enterprise!

The realization of that is the first odd reaction I had to it. You can never talk about this again, or that--the people who shared that world with you are all gone. Weird, hunh?

Hitch

Sad, in a sense. I'm not the "last man standing" in my nuclear family, both siblings are alive, but my previous work lives are rapidly becoming a graveyard. I feel like the bad sheriff in Silverado - "I'm running out of deputies!"

Places too, the "ranch" is under 60 feet of water. The pump jacks I used to ride as a kid are long gone. The old neighborhood where I grew up is a shambles. The quilts are stacked 6 deep on the guest bed, , ,

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

My brother Stan died last Friday morning.

Sad to hear about your loss.

Best wishes - BR

[cromag]

I'm sorry to hear this, mlewis78.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Greg Anos

Sad, in a sense. I'm not the "last man standing" in my nuclear family, both siblings are alive, but my previous work lives are rapidly becoming a graveyard. I feel like the bad sheriff in Silverado - "I'm running out of deputies!"

Places too, the "ranch" is under 60 feet of water. The pump jacks I used to ride as a kid are long gone. The old neighborhood where I grew up is a shambles. The quilts are stacked 6 deep on the guest bed, , ,

Sorry, I misunderstood what you said in your post, I thought you said you were the last person still alive in your immediate family.

Yes, my family home has been sold off and the subsequent buyers didn't think that they wanted/needed all the acreage, so they sold off tracts of land which are now subdivided, changing the entire area from a lovely country home to just another old house, nearly sandwiched between tawdry new McMansions.

All our memories get trashed. That's why the ones we get to share and laugh about, with our surviving family members, while we have them, are precious--for as I said, when that last living person is gone, the only other one that remembers those days--it really is like somebody shutting down the Stargate to another world. This is one of those things that you don't really understand or feel acutely until you really are the Last Man Standing.

Hitch

[mlewis78]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Sorry, I misunderstood what you said in your post, I thought you said you were the last person still alive in your immediate family.

Yes, my family home has been sold off and the subsequent buyers didn't think that they wanted/needed all the acreage, so they sold off tracts of land which are now subdivided, changing the entire area from a lovely country home to just another old house, nearly sandwiched between tawdry new McMansions.

All our memories get trashed. That's why the ones we get to share and laugh about, with our surviving family members, while we have them, are precious--for as I said, when that last living person is gone, the only other one that remembers those days--it really is like somebody shutting down the Stargate to another world. This is one of those things that you don't really understand or feel acutely until you really are the Last Man Standing.

Hitch

Thanks everyone. This is so true about not being able to share about things that happened when we were young or ask them about something I don't remember as well. My other brothers (gone in 2005 and 2016) had good memories for those things and Stan did to a certain extent. Stan was up in New Jersey in 2018 and we rode around our old neighborhood pointing out various houses that had belonged to friends' families in Long Branch. I live in NYC and he was in Dahlonega, GA (he was first semi-retired there and then retired).

[ownedbycats]

I got food poisoning...

[isarl]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I got food poisoning...

Not an experience I'm keen on repeating, myself. Hope you're better again now, and if not, that it passes soon!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I got food poisoning...

oh, no I am so sorry!!!

Damn, how does that happen?

Hitch

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I got food poisoning...

So sorry. BTDT. Not fun. Worst was a time I got it after a business lunch during a power outage in SF. It hit the next day on the plane to Hawaii for a vacation. Trust me, you don’t want this on a plane.

Originally Posted by isarl

Not an experience I'm keen on repeating, myself. Hope you're better again now, and if not, that it passes soon!

groan!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

So sorry. BTDT. Not fun. Worst was a time I got it after a business lunch during a power outage in SF. It hit the next day on the plane to Hawaii for a vacation. Trust me, you don’t want this on a plane.

groan!

Having any sort of illness on a plane is grim; that would be a nightmare.

Hitch

[isarl]

Originally Posted by CRussel

So sorry. BTDT. Not fun. Worst was a time I got it after a business lunch during a power outage in SF. It hit the next day on the plane to Hawaii for a vacation. Trust me, you don’t want this on a plane.

Fully prepared to take this one on faith – no need to replicate your trial! What a nightmare!

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I got food poisoning...

Yikes, I'm so sorry, that's terrible.