Mortality

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by 3894

2. Leave the world more beautiful than you found it.

3. Remember 3894's Shoe Fund in your will.

Number three helps with number two.


Did I tell you guys that my great-grandmother Bertha married her own uncle? It was sometime in 1908 - she was 27 years old, and the uncle (Siegmund) was 41. Bertha's father passed away in Nov 1908 and by the time Bertha gave birth to my grandmother Florrie in June 1909, they had relocated to South Africa, where other family was already established.

The timing raises many more questions - perhaps her father was ailing and his unwed late-twenties daughter needed someone to take responsibility for her. According to the family tree I have, Siegmund was never married before. They only had two kids, which, even though she only started late in the game, is still weird for that generation (everyone else on the chart has many more). Who knows if that was by choice (due to lack of sexual attraction between uncle and niece, full knowledge of close relations, or Siegmund's older age) or by nature (due to close relations or Siegmund's older age). I can't help but think that Siegmund might have been gay.

It was quite a shock to find out that my maternal grandmother Florrie (who I didn't know well) was the product of such weirdness, and that my own mother didn't know about it. She says she was told that Bertha had an earlier husband who passed away so she married her husband's brother, per Jewish tradition. There's no mention of a prior marriage on the tree but it's possible too (though Siegmund was definitely her uncle). Who knows if things were purposefully confused or just muddled.

[Alex]

I have not done any postmortem detective work. When my dad died he had an active second family so it isn't like anything needed attending to by me. And I find that my theoretical relationship to death was pretty straight on.

I was sad for his suffering and for the grief of others. But I wasn't actually sad he was dead. He was alive, he's now dead. It happens to everybody. It's not joy but it doesn't bum me out either. And I find that, if anything, I have even less curiosity about his hidden (to me) life than when he was alive. The death of my great-grandmother in 1995 upset me greatly for a couple days but then it was over and I've never really looked back. I have what I had and that's enough for me. Reading a diary of her teen years wouldn't, I don't think, add anything.

I've longed joked that my life's goal is to leave no ripples. To live a life that I enjoy but that nobody else notices when it is over. To the extent my own death bothers me (and to date that isn't really much at all, though I'd prefer it be awhile) it is just again because of the extent to which it will upset other people. But the thought of passing through life, leaving no physical evidence and just memories in others seems fine to me.

I suspect that much of this is tied to being a child who could leave Christmas presents under a tree for weeks and never touch them and can now leave a fortune cookie in the restaurant unopened. Or not.

It's interesting to me in that I have what I suspect most people would consider a morbid acceptance of death but I tend to think that in so doing I've come out the other side of it without any morbidity at all. I've been lucky in that the amount of death I've experienced is relatively low, but I haven't yet, I don't think, experienced grief. At this point I suspect there's only one person who might trigger that, and both of us want to spare the other that.

Not sure what connection this has with the OP, it's just where the words took me after I started writing.

[katiesue]

My dad used to say "people croak all the time you can't get that upset about it".

I think since we lived in a small town with so many elderly relatives nearby people we knew did die all the time. Yes its sad but the world doesn't end. And the after parties at whomevers home were always fun with a billion people telling old stories and all kinds of random weird foods that people had brought.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Thanks for sharing your stories - it's just the kind of thing I love to hear about. KatieSue - I'm digging the old family pics you've been posting on Facebook & GD - I'd love to hear your family's immigrant tale - I've got a real love of stories of traveling to new worlds and expectations. Strangler Lewis, I also dig the family secrets, the dark things sometimes parents try to keep from their kids but in the end make them more real, vulnerable, and telling.

You know that's got the making of a pretty cool thread on its own - post a pic(s) and story of a dead relative.

[Betty]

I know my family (great grandma or great great - I forget which as I only heard this story off hand and need to get all the details) was involved in bootleg liquor during prohibition. She wouldn't/couldn't tell my great grandpa when they were transporting it though because he was such a nervous nelly and couldn't tell a lie.

[€uroMeinke]

More random thoughts - and Alex I like where you've taken things so all well by this OP.

Yesterday being my mom's deathaversary I actually felt quite good about her. We had the house full of conspiring people and I made cocktails and played host as my mother would have done, serving odd liquors to unsuspecting guests - seemed I was almost channeling her and I thought she'd be rather proud of me (as well as Lisa and her new business(es)).

I like that notion of not leaving a ripple, but I realize that there is a certain ripple I do hope to leave and maybe it comes out of this post-mortum detective work, I hope to leave enough intriguing artifacts to have a stranger make up an imaginary life for me - and really I don't care much about the veracity of the tale as long as it's entertaining.

I'd also hope that the people I know will say the benefited from knowing me - and not in that feed the hungry kind of way, but rather they they engaged in some mischief they might not of otherwise, and had a good time doing so - that would give me good imaginary afterlife grin.

Thanks again for the stories I'm loving them all.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I'd also hope that the people I know will say the benefited from knowing me - and not in that feed the hungry kind of way, but rather they they engaged in some mischief they might not of otherwise, and had a good time doing so - that would give me good imaginary afterlife grin.

Done and done, good sir.

My thoughts on passed loved ones always end up taking on the tinge of guilt as I am habitually bad at keeping in touch with people as much as I know I should. The full weight of my squandered opportunities to be with them, both to learn from them and to bring them happiness (if that doesn't sound too egotistical) becomes plainly apparent to me.

Not that I've managed to turn those thoughts into action in regards to those still here. Sigh.

As for my own legacy - I guess the best way I can put it is that I hope I'm remembered as someone who really wanted for nothing. Not that I don't have desires or goals, but those are just diversions to keep things interesting day-to-day. The attainment or lack of attainment of any of them have little to do with my overall satisfaction with life. As long as people remember me as content and fulfilled, I think I'm good.

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I'd also hope that the people I know will say that they engaged in some mischief they might not of otherwise, and had a good time doing so - that would give me good imaginary afterlife grin.

You mean like sitting with a woman in an outdoor hot-tub stark naked after a few cocktails? that kind of thing?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I'd also hope that the people I know will say the benefited from knowing me - and not in that feed the hungry kind of way, but rather they they engaged in some mischief they might not of otherwise, and had a good time doing so - that would give me good imaginary afterlife grin.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

As long as people remember me as content and fulfilled, I think I'm good.

I think you're batting a thousand here, and if there is any deviation from your goal, it's probably due to my poor influence. You're the agreeable ying to my aggravated yang, and I'm hoping those inclinations only meld in a positive way.

When I try to think of a legacy I want to leave, I come up pretty blank. I used to feel the opposite of Alex, in that I wanted my old letters and artifacts to be obvious and embraced by others once I was gone. These days I feel most of my junk isn't necessarily interesting or worth anyone else's time.

Any journaling/emailing/etc I've done in adulthood would be pretty revelatory to others and I am on the fence as to whether that's a good or a bad thing. Yes, I'd like for a future generation to be able to get to know me and my struggles (#firstworldproblems), but perhaps reading about seriously personal issues that I have would only cause dismay or freak people out.

On the other hand, I didn't marry my uncle, and I learned my great-grandmother's news without freaking out, I just became more curious about the culture and time and lives that would produce such an odd outcome.

Perhaps my stories would have to be buried for a few generations for me to be ok with people seeing them. I'm now realizing what it means to have children and still have a private life.

[lindyhop]

I drove my dad to his brother's funeral yesterday and got to see cousins and aunts and uncles I haven't seen in decades, not just years.

My dad is the oldest of three boys and at 88 he's the healthiest of all of them. His middle brother who passed away had suffered from Parkinson's for years but had still managed to stay pretty active up until the last six months. I hadn't seen my other uncle (the youngest brother) in many years and when this doddering old couple said hello to me it was shocking. And then this other oldish guy was hugging me and I realized it was my cousin who I hadn't seen since I used to babysit his kids when they were babies which was about 35 years ago.

Good lord how did we all get so old.

It was actually a lovely funeral with a lot of family and a many friends. The couple who drove my aunt and uncle to Yuma to get married were there. That was 67 years ago, just amazing. It was so obvious that my aunt and uncle cultivated a wonderful family (9 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, and a new great-great-grandchild) and made many devoted friends.

Which brings me to what I've been thinking about. I seem to have drawn the odd straw in the family. We keep to ourselves and don't have these networks in place. I hope that I can do better with my growing family and that I'll be eulogized as the fun and loving grandma and great-grandma when the time comes.