January IS the cruelest month

I am back. A happy February to one and all! I have always found February to be a "better" month for me than January. Perhaps, it is because I no longer confuse the year. By February, we are already well into the new year. I do not think that is why. I mean do I really care if I flub the year? No.

In all my life, I think that I can only recall a single fond January memory. That would be the 1997 birth of the Lad. His birthday is nice and all, but it is not as monumental, to me, as his actual birth (I am still recovering from the sight of that thing. I think it was a wise choice that I never became a butcher.). My grandfather died at the end of January back in 1976. My uncle died around the same time back in 1980. I truly believed there was a pattern here. I was figuring that my other uncle was due to expire at the end of January, 1984. I told my father that I saw the pattern, he thought me morbid and sick. I told my mother and she thought the same thing. There you have it, I am morbid and sick.

By the way, the uncle I figured was a goner in 1984, is still with us. He does not say much to me, though. Then again, he never did. He did say he liked my brother best. We have it on my brother's wedding video. That says it all. Or does it? This is the uncle that when my father lay in his hospital bed the day before his death, when he was partly somewhere else and yet very funny, and my father saw him, my father said to me, "Why don't you mix, H, a drink?" This is because my uncle is always drinking rum and diet coke. Every time he comes to my mother's, it is known that somebody (me) should fix him a drink. Then he sits there in silence. I guess that is who he is.

I am thinking that as the type of guy who likes to dip his toe in the water, January is just strange to me. The beginning of a new year, I can only dip my toe in the year. I guess I do not get used to the new year until February. I think I was like that with school, with me feeling a bit discombobulated in September, but by October, I am used to things. I guess I just need to find my equilibrium.

My uncle and grandfather dying in January did make those odd leap years. Both were rather sad events in my life. I had a premonition of my grandfather's death. He and my grandmother were over at our house that Friday morning before I went to school (January 30, 1976-I was in grade six). I am not sure why, perhaps my brother was home sick or something. I was not coming home for lunch that day. It was my treat to go with a friend to the Dominion grocery store at the local plaza for a hot dog and orange drink. I recall looking at my grandfather and thinking that this will be the last time that I see him. Then I shrugged my shoulders and went off to school.

I came home at three thirty, only to be greeted at the door by my father. That is odd as he was never home at that time of the day. He says, "We have run into a bit of a problem." Note, how he tries to soften the blow. Problem implies something that can be fixed. Death is rather permanent. This is no fixing that. I guess the living can at least get on with living after some grieving time, but "problem", thanks for the understatement, dad. "..(grandfather) passed away", he continued.

There was stunned silence on my part. I took a bit of a walk and braced myself for what I was about to witness. I do not recall my mother. I do recall my grandmother bawling her eyes out on the couch. I had never seen her that I way and did not like what I saw. My uncle had not arrived from British Columbia at that time. I could not figure out all of the crying at that point. My thinking was that none of those tears were going to bring him back. I now understand it as sadness for losing a loved one. It was not crying and praying to bring him back, but praying and crying because of a sense of grief and loss. I was a dumb kid. I had the mechanics and notions of death down, not the emotions. I was sort of like a death-autistic child.

Well, I am done with this as I am done with January. It is February and the best is yet to come! Ciao!