jtmitchum.com

This is to see if I can post using a new client side poster

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So many things have happened that I haven’t updated my site to announce the most important update in my life. Family and friends have known for a great deal of time, so I have only been reluctant in informing the web as it were.

Back in January, on a Monday, I was zipping around getting a few things done before I headed into work. As I hurried up the stairs to get my last few items, Kerry stood before me with a look that hovered between nervous good and nervous terrible.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said.

I can tell you now, my life has never been the same since then. After about 4 or 5 home tests over the course of the next 2 to 3 days, we became solidly convinced that either all pregnancy home kits were messed up, or we were most definitely pregnant.

Four weeks later, in a matter of seconds the ultrasound peered around and I saw the first picture of my child. Kerry’s words described it best.

“It looks like a peanut.”

I could already see the tiny oscillations of the brightest point of that ultrasound and recognized it as the heart beat before the sonographer even mentioned it. The beats were coming at 184 a minute and it was fascinating. It was fascinating the way lightning is fascinating to young children. Bright and amazing but just a little bit terrifying. There was no doubting it now, I’m going to be a parent.

Four more weeks later, the doctor would hold a fetal doplar to Kerry. The doctor searched for what seemed like hours and I came to understand the meaning of a pregnant moment. Finally, through all the rush and whir of bodily noises and just after I could identify Kerry’s heartbeat came this rush and whir at twice Kerry’s heart rate.

I heard the strong pumping contractions of my child’s heart. As the Doc. held steady, we listened and smiled at the powerful whir and thuds coming at nearly 160 beats per minute. Now that is a moment. No terrifying sensations here, just pride and warmth.

It was at that point, 3 months in, that I could finally let the rest of the world know, which really meant work and friends that aren’t as commonly seen or are at a distance. So, Kerry is safely into the second trimester and a lot of relief comes with that.

I’ve got about a million diary entries about how she’s been doing in my personal journal, but I reserve those for now. She’s doing well, but I can tell you this little one is vigorously ripping her of nutrients and energy at every turn. Good for the baby, wearing on mom.

I’m not sure if the title of this post warrants much explanation or apology. There are polite and euphamistic ways to put things that are delicate in nature, but my grandma died this morning and I don’t feel the patience for such niceties.

I woke up around noon ready for the start of my night shift rotation when dad called. He had a little polite conversation  before informing me. I wasn’t shocked, but a moment of disbelief held a deep breath before breathing the life of the statement into my heart and mind.

Grandma had been very ill since September and I had been fairly convinced she would pass away not long after her emergency admission. Every month since that one, I always felt, was on God’s humor. Still, as the feelings of permanence anchored on the moment, I came to understand why grieving is its own word, carefully created and crafted to be just different than sadness, longing and missing.

I’m not ready to eulogize the moment, yet, but I wanted to diary certain observations of the day. Her absence is made starkly more visible by everyone else’s presence.

I cleaned up quickly after talking a while with Dad, making sure I understood what “I’m okay” meant from his thoughts and words before informing Kerry and my work. In what I realize is not always the case, everyone responded respectfully and compassionately. Work made arrangements for my time with no pressure. Kerry was quick and urgent to offer to be with me for anything I needed.

After the necessary phone calls had been completed, I took some time to myself and let the fresh ink of thoughts dry a bit on my face before pacing out the next steps.

The death of close family members probably varies with infinite degrees and stories, but the days that follow, I would wager, are all familiar echoes. Immediately, plans are made for ceremonies, informing friends and family, casket selection, obituary column information, pall bearers, flower arrangements, marker selections and engravings, music selections, someone to officiate the service and even finalizing financial agreements with funeral homes and cemetary fees. It’s all very processed and set-forth with shadowy variations for cremations or exceptionally violent deaths or criminal cases.

My sister and I were present for these decisions on priviledge of proximity. We were close by and ready, so we were present to watch the three children make decisions about their deceased mother. A loyal husband, grandpa, rested at the end of the table incapable of hearing the conversations about the ceremonies and selections. Gravity pulled at his face and thoughts with twice the normal forces. It seemed clear that his frustration with not being able to hear the polite descriptions of available features and options was easily lost in his desire for a moment to grieve.

The reality is there won’t be a better moment any time soon, so best to get it all out of the way now and be pestered less in the future. Reality has little concern with patience or compassion, but if it did, I suppose none of us should ever die.

I found myself oscillating between roles of support, humor and reason. I tried to write out as much as I thought would be helpful for grandpa so he could feel apart of what was going on. Simple details that had already been predetermined seemed important to tell him. At least then he knew his kids were just confirming what he and Maxine (his wife) had already picked. Grandpa was upset, the way you should be upset for such an event.

While I lost grandma, I always felt very aware that my dad and his brother and sister lost a mom. I’m not sure I would feel ‘devastated’ at the loss of my parents, but the world would feel different in a way I wouldn’t want to accept quickly, if ever. The math logic is cruel, you have two sets of grandparents and only one set of parents, but it isn’t the numbers that make my dad’s loss greater or more personal than mine. It’s the affect this person had on his life versus mine.

So I honor that and do what I can to try and help these two brothers and sister through a magnificent loss. I tried to predict where I could help with smaller things and offered reassurance for choices as if I could really be any help. I even called upon my humor at times with good taste and timing to help keep the air fresh. These were my ways of grieving and participating. They are not so great as the choices for these siblings who each feel a great personal loss, but they were what I could do at the time.

I had good fortune to talk with Grandma at the hospital in September when she was first admitted. Her blood pressure had been out of control, her heart rate varied and her mental faculties were in complete disarray most of the times I visited. She appeared in bed as if she were playing charades and she had gotten the word ‘uncomfortable’ to act out.

But, one night I had stopped by to get a little overtime. At the end of the shift, I went up to the floor to see if her blood pressure had reacted at all to some of the treatment adjustments they had made. I’m not sure if they had worked or what, but I guess I know better than to question such a fine gift.

She was propped up in bed watching tv as if nothing were a matter. We had a clear conversation and I just felt like I was lucky. She knew she was sick and in the hospital. She knew people had visited her all day, but she knew she couldn’t recall it all. We talked about little things. We talked about all her kids, grandkids and great grandchildren. The span of her life and all it’s blessings were held in her smile as she reflected on each of them. She let out small half laughs in between thoughts. She used to laugh all the time and this was the first I had heard in a long stretch.

I took advantage of the end of our conversation before leaving. I told her I loved her and how thankful I was to have her as a grandma. I felt fortunate then, I’m even more indebted to such fortunes now.

There are a great deal many more thoughts and observations I have on this situation, but I retain a great deal of them privately. A great deal of stories unfolded through the day and I’m masking a great deal of the amplitude of emotions observed in so many others in respect for the moment.

For now, I stick with the explanation I gave as title and introduction for this grandma I love and miss.

Grandma died.

Several changes abound and many of them will make loads of sense in the near future. The blog is not dead at all – in fact I suspect it’s about to become hyperactive.

I would normally change themes and have them entirely altered, but I’m opting for a ‘live’ upgrade instead; mainly because I suspect the ‘time’ to complete a finished project is just going to be spread too thin.

I’m dropping the blog title ‘Grey Matters’ for a more plain and simple name – mine (jtmitchum.com). Part of this is just being fashionable, but it’s also just a matter of practicality. What sense does it make to have a blog name different than the web address if you’ve paid for the web address? After acquiring jtmitchum.com, I figured I’d use it. (For those of you that got here through the older http://family.ncambium.com/jt/ link, this blog is now at www.jtmitchum.com/blog/) Grey Matters will remain as a category for posts that I believe are relatively philosophical or minimally deep in thinking (I like to call this the “Beermagination” section… other suitables are wine wisdom or absinthe minded)
I also upgraded to WordPress 2.0 (a fine upgrade indeed) and I’ll be making more sensical additions to this site than I ever had with my old layout. So… patience please (if it even makes a difference in your world) because I’ll be back with a thunderstorm of posts in the very near future.

Until then…

I could title this, 1 sure way to know you’re winning a debate, but that may not necessarily be true.

Eventually, if you argue a hot enough topic long enough and well enough, your opposer will eventually have had… enough!

There are so many logical fallacies people use in debates without knowing it, but the really bad ones seem to present themsevles in the death throws of an argument.
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I’ve been privy to several good topical debates lately (without provocation I might add) and most of them really pointed out how people ‘hear’ a debate.

Have you ever started arguing with someone only to find 10 minutes later that you were arguing points on two different topics all together? Someone has to give the ‘Oh, I thought you were talking about (personal topic in mind here), not (other person’s personal topic)’.

So, much to the chagrin of two avid debaters, there has, in fact, been no debate at all. I think this happens even when two or more persons do agree they are arguing on the same topic.

Arguing on the same topic is counter-productive to arguing on the same point.
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Light.

It’s the most observed radiation by humans and probably one of the more interesting energy forms. Nothing travels faster than light that we know of and few energies reach as far through the universe as light can. As matter approaches the speed of light, it approaches it’s transformation into energy.

Einstein’s observations of light gave birth to modern Quantum mechanics; that field of science that took Einstein’s predictable Universe and made it a matter of best guesses. Einstein spent the rest of his life trying to debunk what is now known as the Heisenburg uncertainty principle.
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