though i'd like to keep my cheeks dry today...

In a dramatic turn of events, I've made the achingly swift journey to upstate New York today in order to bury my Godmother tomorrow.

In the absence of half of my spiritual guides (though mostly just in spirit, never in religion), I arrived at the funeral home tonight and hugged my Godfather. I knelt at Mimi's casket and cried, and apologized for not coming sooner.

I was greeted like the forgotten hero who left town long ago to seek greener pastures. Oh... you're in New Jersey... that's right.

I can't pretend my pain is so great as to rival that of Mary's immediate family, but I do feel a little deserted, and like this has really just been an incredibly crappy couple of weeks on the mortality front. My great-uncle died last week, only two weeks after his wife, my great-aunt. And of course, there is the Current Situation in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

At least some good came out of this day -- I was able to visit at the wake with two of my high school English teachers, in fact the two I think of most frequently, and the two that I would have chosen to see on a night like tonight, if that was a choice I ever had to make.

Mr A, who once accused me of being unable to write sans parenthetical phrases, and later retracted and apologized for trying to strip my writing bare of its detail, also sells tip sheets at the track in the summertime.

Mr M had an Icarus Contest on the last day of class, in which a frisbee is thrown and the most spectacular catch, the highest leap, the student nearest the sun, takes the frisbee and the adulation of both class and teacher. I still have the nickel he slipped me on graduation day.

They were each worth a hug, an ego boost, a nice comment about my family, and a short step back to when I was a giant. And they are charming and wonderful men. Mr M brought his lovely wife and I couldn't help but want to move home and have coffee with them occasionally.