olga unhinged it's been almost nine years and i still miss you 071207 ... unhinged i didn't get to say goodbye i still remember the sad look in his eye and i got on the plane knowing you wouldn't be there when i got back i lit a candle in a church in vienna an easter sermon i couldn't understand i sat down in a church was it in hungary? i tried to pray and i could only cry like the little girl outside she was lost crying i lit a candle for you on a railing overlooking lake michigan it was still cold i stood there as long as i could tending the flame and even in the wind it stayed lit i walked across the footbridge it stayed lit i bought some czech beer i was crying i was lost it stayed lit it's been almost nine years and i still miss you 071207 ... unhinged i saw on the bus the other day they have a cure for it now, the disease that killed you. some kind of manufactured cells or organisms or something that reverse the effects of cirrohsis in rats. so close to the anniversary, i could only be sad when i read that. 080401 ... unhinged i bought some special music from england i'm going to go to the cemetery and play for you the next time i'm in town 080602 ... little big man It Was Olga. She Never Learned To Speak Much English, But She Sure as Hell Learned To Speak Cheyenne! I Saw No Need To Reveal Myself Now. 080603 ... unhinged and then sometimes i wonder if it wouldn't still hurt so bad if i had been there, at the church, at the funeral home, at the cemetery. to have some official mourning, some official goodbye. but i was there, hours before you died and i knew in my heart it was time for you to go. you couldn't hear my violin anymore, your life was receding from you and i could see it. it is such a powerfully painful thing to see someone you love lose their life. and you, it was so slowly. thirteen months, all of us knowing in our hearts you would never recover. so in her pain of watching her father die over the past month, in icu, organs failing, i can only remember you. the way me and mom sat at your bedside in the icu, you painfully slowly organizing the magnet letters on the board that mom brought because you couldn't talk or write. and even then, the brave smile. today my heart breaks to remember. my heart breaks for her, to go through that with her father even more unimaginable. every day that goes by without you, i realize how even more precious real love is in the world. how completely blessed i was to have you in my life. a shining beacon, a deep well, an endless lesson. that little flame from that candle in that church in vienna, for years the crosses i wore, a memorial to you. 080828 ... unhinged happy birthday earth mama. i can't help but think you are the reason the sun is shining. 090422 ... unhinged memories_like_clouds_1 100729 ... unhinged i found the polaroid of you grandpa gave me when uncle al died recently. i had carried it around in my purse for awhile to look at whenever i wanted. it's on my wall now in the cube frame that holds a lot of other pictures; i looked in your eyes through the picture and said 'i miss you grandma' and the ache in my heart seemed more profound that after almost 14 years it was still there, not really lessened by time when it wells to the surface 130110 ... unhinged . it is that day again 14 years later my eyes are dry but my heart still aches so many things grandma so many things i wish i could have crawled into your lap and buried my face in your hugs i miss you (oh shit now the tears come) 130328 ... unhinged happy birthday the birds are singing the sun is shining happy birthday 180422 ... unhinged has it really been twenty years? twenty?! without your smell without your hugs without your chuckle i guess it has been that long *sigh* 190328 ... unhinged mom asked me to help her clean out dad's drawers in their bedroom after he died much the same way she probably did with yours while i was traipsing around europe. i took his crosses even though i haven't been christian for almost as long as you've been gone. the celtic one that shares a necklace loop with a celtic knot that's heart shaped that i know mom gave him as a gift that he used to wear close to his heart under his clothes is my favorite. i remember the day you and dad got in a fight over him yelling at me about cleaning out my bedroom closet mom has been asking me to take photos for years now. this time we were digging through boxes of loose ones and i found another polaroid of you. with strawberry blonde hair, cheekbones so high and round they looked edible, and a cigarette dangling between your left hand fingers as you tried to hide your face from the camera. grandpa could get really annoying with that polaroid camera especially when he was drunk couldn't he? i still miss your hugs i still feel a little creeping melancholy when i get a whiff of your perfume 210831 ... newworldorder ghosting 220603 what's it to you? who go blather from