Life's twists

It's a funny thing how life twists and turns. I'm not whining today, well not much. Sorry about not posting over the last few weeks, I started school and my grandfathers been dying, so my mother has been around. My grandfather died yesterday and his death brought to mind my thoughts on life and death and their relationship. We start dying the minute we are born and it is a part of the natural order of things but that doesn't mean that we are all stoic about such things. My sister and I often joke that we are emotionally broken, as our emotional responses are not quite as dramatic as many around us. It is interesting to see the myriad of emotions and reactions that people have to death. Yesterday at my grandfathers house we sat with my grandfather's wife, my step-grandmother if you will, and we remembered grandpa, we went through his papers, and he kept every piece of paper he ever got since he was born in 1921 til his death. I discovered my grandfather was an adventurous young man who surfed, a smart young man who graduated from high school with honours and then decided to forgo college to serve his country in the army. I met my grandfather yesterday and discovered another portion of my history. My grandfather was an interesting character and when I think of him I think of a gentleman who is always well put together, his outfit always set off by a matching hat. I remember that he smoked for as long as I knew him and longer still than that. He drank like a fish. He was a loving father and grandfather. He was married twice and had seven step-children but they were all his children. I remember my grandpa. I think that just this summer he was as vibrant as ever, he helped my uncle tile his kitchen. Grandpa has 8 children, 14 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. His was a life well lived and a life well spent. I think that those 86 years were good years. the last three weeks were hard to watch and in all honesty I didn't watch too closely, I saw him on my days off from work once a week, this week he died before i got there. The man that lay in the bed was not my grandpa, but a shell of the man I knew, the last day I saw my grandfather I was sad to see a man in pain unable to express his hurt, the circulation in his hands was so bad they were black, I am not one to sit in a place and watch someone suffer knowing I have no way of helping, I must say that I am happy that he went my only sadness is that he did not go before he had to suffer and his family had to watch.

Anyway maybe a week before grandpa died he was moved to hospice at, Augustina Lutheran Nursing Home, they cared for him and they did an excellent job. My grandfather died at 9:40 am on Sunday. On Sunday afternoon the undertaker went to collect the body from the hospital across the street since the nursing home does not have a morgue, they were told that the body was not there. After several hours of back and forthing, my mother and cousin drove to the hospital and again had to go back and forth from the hospice to the nursing home trying to figure out where my grandfathers body was. It turns out the body was at the morgue in the hospital but the paperwork was still in the hospital, however my cousin had to get on the phone with her father, a retired new york city judge, and my mother had to make a fuss in order for anything to be done. No one wanted to take responsibility for what went wrong, neither the head nurse at the hospital nor the one at the nursing home would step up.

The only other thing I may want to mention is that we really need to make sure that we are covered as far as life insurance is concerned. My grandfather had two policies and combined they still weren't enough to cover his burial expenses.

I just wanted to mention that i am not callous and that if my grandfather had been a young man I would have been much more touched.
having said that I would like to express my great sadness at the loss of a great actor, Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger had so much to live for. he had so much more to give and so much potential. I remember him in the teen movie 10 Things I Hate About You. I thought he was so cute and i enjoyed the movie, I will never forget that scene when he was coming down the stairs singing You're Just too good to be true. I also must add that the movie was based off of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. A radio personality in New York said that Heath ledger's death was insignificant and that nobody in the black community cared, she was wrong. She went further to say that no one would remember him as anything more than a gay cowboy. Anytime someone dies it affects us all, but someone in the spotlight so youngs death should never be counted as insignificant.

The Wedding blues

So as you might have gathered from the last post I am planning on getting married this year. Giant step for someone like me with all the other issues I've got ... We'll get to those later. Anyway I had it all planned in my head what I wanted and how I wanted it, but it seems that nothing is going the way I planned, I guess that comes from being broke and dependent on others.

So anyway, I found the most gorgeous wedding dress (in my opinion) at David's Bridal and decided to design my wedding around that. I bought the dress and after having to go up a size It's mine...YEA!!!!!!!. I still have to get invitations but here is where my problem starts. It's not really the invitations that are the problem but the reception venue, number of guests etc. Oh did I mention the big event is supposed to take place in July. Anyway I wanted to have the reception at the Hilton Kingston and My father and Grandmother want to have the reception in the backyard...The small backyard with max capacity of 150...I am not saying I plan to invite more than that but it doesn't leave much wiggle room and then add the fact that my mom's side of the family will need somewhere to stay when they travel from the states...having the reception at the hotel just seemed simpler.

Thinking back to my sisters wedding she had 300+ guests at her Jamaican wedding and she had a wedding in the states as well, ah the benefits of being the first born. Lucky M (male cousin 3 months younger than me). he won't have to concern himself with such issues. If my grandmother hadn't sold her house a few years ago the backyard thing would have been no issue, that front yard held everyone at my sisters reception and my aunt's before that. you may be wondering how it is that my sisters guest list at one of her weddings went over 300, without her American side of the family or her grooms family there and somehow I have ended up with a guest list of 150 and am being told to cut it back further. well if you're not, I sure am.
Anyway I managed to delegate a lot of the little things, flowers, music and cakes, I bought my dress and favours and plan to get the invitations myself, all my dad has to pay for is the reception, the average wedding in the united states is over $20,000 and i am not requesting anything quite that extravagant, i am going to have the ceremony in the church I attended so that I get to use the church for free, and I was going to ask his cousin to officiate. I figured having the reception at a hotel where they provide the food, alcohol, a venue, a place for the bride to stay the night before the wedding, transportation to and from the ceremony, and several other perks as well as discounted rooms for overseas guests all for $40 per person (not the guest rooms just the discount) why would you insist on having to rent tables and chairs and redo the entire hilly backyard just for a wedding. So I agreed to look at it their way and see what I thought. I requested quotes for all the expenses involved in a backyard wedding: catering, table and chair rental, table cloth rental, tent rental, etc. I'm still waiting. The longer I put off booking the reception place I want the less likely I'll get it. They know this. I think it's a plot. Now if I have the reception in the backyard where am I going to put my guests from overseas, there are only so many guest rooms in these houses.

Whining

This is the rant of a selfish spoilt child, the one that falls between the prized first born grandchild and the prized first male grandchild. This is the rant of the one in between. You don’t realize you are the one in between at first. Being the one in between is not so bad anyway, as long as you aren’t stubborn, opinionated, feisty, and strong willed. But what if you are all those things? Growing up in a society where boys are prized possessions in a family of girls is not easy. Being the one in between is no fun either. So this is where the girl in between has come to bitch and moan about being in between, being shipped off to another country to live as the in between, life as the in between and planning a wedding as an in between. This is the girl in betweens reflections about the past, her concerns about the present and her hopes and fears about the future. This is me in between.