Cleaning out a hard drive found the last post.
The blog has a new look and and a new title. This seemed to sound much better than the old one because I endeavor to believe that that period of my life is over.
This collision course that I set myself on starting in about August of 2002. (Nifty how it closely relates to the death of my grandparents.) Which in the case of some people that dont know:

I will relate the story: My grandfather died on June 28, 2002, from old age (92 years old) cosciencidentally we ended burying him exactly six years from the day We buried my father. The only fortunate thing about this was that I was already sheduled to arrive in Pennsylvania to drop off a PC that my uncle had me build. I just ended up leaving two days early. Fate also had a very interesting way of working itself out because I had luxury of bringing a friend with me to the funeral. I guess I should mention in the time leading up to this my mother had been serving as the primary care-giver for both my grandparents.(Along with the rest of her brothers and sisters) So I was not only trying to finish up a difficult semester at school, build a computer, but also I was taking care of her house as well as mine. Getting back to the events that eventually were the unraveling of me. My friend was able to take three additional days off to attend the funeral with me. So we ventured off the 13 hour drive from Chicago to Tremont PA. We are greeted by my mother and grandmother whom I should mention was diagnosed with the final stages of heart failure at the time and we were greeted with open arms. I looked in to my grandmother's already dim eyes and knew in my heart of hearts that she wasnt long for this world. Hindsight is ALWAYS 20-20. but my friend and I made the best of the visit.
Having not been the first funeral I had to attend/take part of, I knew that there was a certain level of madness that came with all of the events at hand... planning dinners, reading services etc. and having read at my father's funeral six years previously, I asked if could repeat the reading because the power of words somehow shined out like a beacon offering just a bit of comfort in a otherwise painful time.

Those of you know that I don not going around quoting the bible, but and I often have been quoted as saying that the bible is the "best piece of fiction ever written" But I have decided to include here the verse because I often wake up hearing it in my head... and sometimes forgot where to find it.(yes I must be getting old) so here goes:

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What advantage has the worker from his toil?

I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about.

He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men's ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.

I recognized that there is nothing better than to be glad and to do well during life.

For every man, moreover, to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God.

I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.

Sunday school lesson over now, back to my description of what I can only start to write to arrange the emotions in my head a nearly the two year anniversary of these events.

So I have the support of a very close friend, but I lost one of my closest cousins simultanously to the grief that he felt of my grandfathers death. I am only guessing at this because the six months previous to the Death of my grandparents I began to withdraw from everyone that I loved, My family, my friends, and It was like I was Noah and I was building my emotional ark to weather this familia shit storm that was about to take place.

I get extrodarialy angry with people who take pictures of the Dead lying in their final resting place. I believe that you should have remember the person when their soul is on this plane not looking at the empty carton left behind. I cringe everytime I accidentally reach for the photo envelope and come across a picture of a dead relative. The common excuse for this is closure, Whatever, I should not live in judgement but I guess thats just another one of my human frailites.

Getting back to the shit storm. My cousin's father insisted that we "bury the hatchet" and resolve what it was to be resolved. In this attempt I tried to gain the knowledge of what I did wrong and the best response I got was that I dont know...... My response to this was, "your not getting off that easy." I need to know because how I am to avoid this sitauation in the future. I only find out 18 months later it was communicated back to my uncle as I told my cousin that I was not going to leave him off that easy. Thats a subject for another post, REVISIONIST HISTORY.

Lets talk about July 12 for a minute. a day before it was set for us to drive back to Chicago. I was awoke from my bed with a shriek of horror in which I have only heard the tone once before. The morning my mother called me to Loyola Medical Center the day my dad died. I am reconstructing these events from here on out by stories of what was told to me, so if someone who reads this knows otherwise please let me know.

I slid down the stair on the balls of my feet and flew out to the patio that had become my grandparents bedroom. My mother was crying and sobbing in a way that I knew immediately what was wrong. she looked at me and begged me to Help my grandmother, who was laying on the bed.... luke warm and not breathing....
In a flash I just completed a semester of CPR/First Responder training and it kicked in.... I commanded my mother to dial 9-1-1 and instruct the dispatcher that there was someone that was performing CPR.... My mother choked out the words, and dropped the phone to help me drag my grandmother onto the floor. As we slid the 120 pound woman to the floor her head hit the ground with a loud thump! and cringed and began to asesss the situation.... I began preforming CPR... my mother returning to the phone while the dispatcher tried to calm my mother... My mom, told the dispatcher that she needed to call her family and she hung up.. My mom began dial and I could hear her in the background... I would look up from giving breathes and see another relative enter the room. I had to endure about 10 different looks of horror and tear from each one of my aunts uncles, and their spouses. Tears were pouring everywhere, and I was relentless.. I would bring her back no matter what....
The first couple of chest compressions I could feel her ribs break beneath my palms... the sound of cracking bones still haunt me late at night, because I was "hurting my grandma" but training snaps in and says that broken ribs are mendable, and older people have very brittle bones, and its very common occurance. This is first I have wrote these words out for public consumption, I have spoke about this to some people but this is for all to read. The tactile senstion of the broken bones somehow to this day feels like it was my spirit that was breaking. I dont think I will ever recover from this pain. I dont think I am supposed to. I think this "burden" is mine to carry around forever, I dont feel the need to seek abosultion but I do feel like the one time I could be there for my grandmother, I was not, I failed her. My emotional center somehow feels this whereas my ration mind realizes that I was there for her when she needed me, I was able to bear this burden for her to pass on.
My mother, all the while begged me to help her, and begged me to bring her back... this was going on in the back of my mind and I just turned into a machine, From recollection of other people that were there, I had been performing CPR for about 45 minutes before the abulance arrived. At which point my aunt Linda kneeled alongside me and asked what to do to help. Somehow I kept yelling at her to give rescue breathes..... in breath I feel The next memory I have is standing in front of my house on my cell phone calling my brother to tell him that my grandmother had passed. It was a warm July morning, and I can remember looking at my knuckles that were white, and thinking I was exhausted. I walked back inside as they loaded up my grandmother onto the gurnee... They attempted to wheel out this Very proud woman in her bra and panties, at which point my aunt brenda screamed at the EMT staff to cover her up... Please!! let her leave her house with dignity.

I flash to the ambulance pulling away and the mass exodus to hospital.. How do you get 25 plus people that have just lost their mother/grandmother/mother in law safely without someone else getting hurt. Arrangment made, and I was glad when musical chairs stopped that I had my own car to drive. In the midst of all of this I forgot about my friend upstairs... I climbled the stair, my legs like overstreched rubber bands and I collapsed into her arms. I didnt even form the words Shez gon.. before I released a sampling of the pain I just spent the past hour and 15 minutes absorbing. She agreed to goto the hospital with me and we were off.

The longest 11 miles of my life I drove that morning to the bleak entrance of the "local" hospital, I began to see the familar faces of all my relatives with a look of utter horror on their faces. My mother had alway raised us to show emotion and never bottle up any feelings. I entered the emergency room and to the left of the door was a holding area in which they had laid my grandmother out.

Very few images will be burned like that of my mother standing at my grandmother's head, crying. We all formed a circle around the center of our family. Hurt, confusion, pain, guilty, and anguish filled the room. I tried with all my being to be "strong" but the sight of my mother again so mortally wounded and me emotionally unable to ease her pain caused me release tears for so many reasons. Not necessarly for my grandmother, because I knew she was in a better place, but for her children who werent even begining to deal with the death of their father.

Ironically, my grandmother died exactly 1 min short of two weeks from grandmother. The quote, I will always remember her say after my grandfather died, was, "I am free at last" I can fill my church envelops without anyone telling that I am wrong.

Other moments of the morning that stick in my gullet was that of my uncle that sole concern was how we going to divide up the estate. It took ALL of my composure not the lay him out flat. To this day, I believe this man bears me ill will because I think he believes that I should have somehow saved his "mom". I keep hearing in my head, the quote,"everyone deals with grief differently" Well I guess he gets a pass... but still lingers these thoughts of anger two years later.

The organization of yet another funeral was on the horizon. To ease the pain of this event, A simple call was made to duplicate the funeral for my grandmother in the same way we did my grandfather. While the arrangements were being made, My friend and I returned to the house and I began to clean the house. When I walked into the room where my grandmother had laid, it look as if there was a struggle. I dont know where I got the strength to pull the room together but I made the bed and straighted out the rug and replaced the lap and pushed the displaced furniture back into place.
At this point, my aunt arrived to help clean the house, and as she was cleaning up the kitchen I called to her because I smelled the strongest odor in the world. ROSES, I scanned the room and there was NO cut flower in the house at all.. and I realized it was my grandmother thanking my for helping her crossover. My aunt and I looked at each other I put my arm around her shoulder and we both just took in the moment.

My grandmother was a devote Catholic and prayed to the Virgin Mary every day. Most of the members of my family believe that the roses were the virgin Mary coming for my grandmother, To this I say, if that is the belief you have I will let you continue with that because it is rooted in your faith, and its not my purpose to undermine your faith, but its my purpose to let you know that she is better than okay.

So my two week vacation has now strectched into three and half weeks. I am starting to really appreciate my friend who was able to workout staying another week. In retrospect without her there I would have not had a anchor to this experience, which I have somehow shortened to just saying the "funerals"

The week after the funeral, we travled back to Chicago and knew when I saw the Sears Tower from the Skyway that my life would forever be changed. I began to restructure my attitude to include a more selfish attitude toward life.

I was only home a short four days when My brother and I hopped back on a plane and suprised my mother for her 65th birthday back in pennsylvania. The whole family came over, (not very unusal considering the events of the past month) under the guys of helping pick a tombstone, my brother and I were the last to file in and we walked to the kitchen table and said I like this one. I should also mention that I called my mother from the upstair on my cellphone and told her that I was driving with my friend to get some dinner and she told me it was too loud to talk so she was hanging up. She looked at me, and my brother and started to bawl... Surprised was yelled and we ushered down to the backyard where we decorated it like a little kids party. Props to my brother for throwing this shindig.... After a month of sorrow, a little happiness was in order.

Topics of My grandparents house filtered throughout the family. I knew the day my grandmother died that the house would be ours. because we understood it, not its monitary value but its emotional value, and were willing to make the sacrifes to ensure its contiunation of its long standing tradition.

My did not return to Illinois for almost another two months. In that time she spent this time in the house that was my grandparents. I dont know what she experienced there but my mother was never the same after the "funerals" and each day since I have watch a piece of her die everyday.