Taking some time off

As some of you knew, my grandmother the woman who helped raise me was going through chemo. She recently passed away. To those that have wished prayers and the like on my family thank you. To those that will in the future now that I’ve posted this thank you again. To the curious, it was not covid but cancer. I’m making this post because making stuff and putting it online is how I make sense of things. Since the diagnosis, she discussed death openly with frankness and death became a constant meditation over 2020. We lost my Dad’s mom, my girlfriend’s grandma, a cousin, and everyone lost people as covid blasted over the news.

In her passing, I know she wouldn’t want me mourning or crying. She would chastise me saying “Please Joseph I’ve had my time and lived a full life”. Telling me she’s made peace with her God. She was a tenacious woman, from who I inherited my opinionated ways. I thank her for the skills she has taught my brother and me. In a way, she was a second mother.

I, amazingly enough, happened to have videos in advance so while it may look like I am still posting. I’ll be away. Talking to family digitally, ruminating on death. Mourning and the emotions that come with the time. I looked online towards Stoics for how they dealt with death and I want to share that. It’s a quote by Roman philosopher Seneca a stoic classic that has helped guide me before.

“Has it then all been for nothing that you have had such a friend? During so many years, amid such close associations, after such intimate communion of personal interests, has nothing been accomplished? Do you bury friendship along with a friend? And why lament having lost him, if it be of no avail to have possessed him? Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has removed their persons, still abides with us. The past is ours, and there is nothing more secure for us than that which has been.”

It has not been for nothing and to have such a grandmother, and a mentor is a blessing. I carry her tenacity with me. For my children and my children’s children. Thank you for reading my ramble. I love you grandma and may you not scold me for the tattoo I’m going to get in honor of you.