Mom has seen fit to reward my optimism. Yesterday I broke with the pessimists in my life, and by nightfall I was shown that I made the right decision. Those of you who think I’m insane for believing this can go right ahead. I respect your opinion, and I— No I don’t. Cram it. Shove…
Good-bye, pessimists. I’m sorry.
October 19, 2013
My father Edward Joseph Wictor was the most pessimistic person I’ve known. His favorite pronouncements were, “It’s really scary” and “Nothing’s ever gonna get better.” Here’s Dad at the age of twenty-three in 1951, serving in the U.S. Coast Guard at LORAN Station Bikati. Dad being Dad, the only thing I know about his time…
Mom was a party girl!
October 19, 2013
In the last two years of her life, Mom told me a lot about herself. A lot. Things that I found truly inconceivable. Since she told me these things in confidence, I won’t repeat them. But Mom was a party girl. Aside from a couple of her girlfriends, I may be the only person who…
Orphans
October 18, 2013
Today it finally hit me that my brothers, my sister, and I are orphans. Eric still has his mother, but the rest of us are parentless. We’re all fifty or thereabouts, so it’s not like we’re now helpless and terrified. I find it incomprehensible more than anything else. Though Mom and Dad died for nine…
Grady Harp review of Ghosts and Ballyhoo
October 17, 2013
Grady Harp has reviewed Ghosts and Ballyhoo on Amazon. Five stars! Thank you, Grady. I was going to write a post about how Mom’s death has left me in a state of hyper-irritation. Most of what I see and hear strikes me as unbearably trivial. The radio spews out the same set-piece political bitch-fests that…
Mom’s stamps
October 15, 2013
Mom went into the hospital in April. She stopped eating two weeks before her surgery. Dad died on February 23, 2013. Like Mom he stopped eating the second he heard the doctors tell him he had to eat. Six months ago I resigned myself to losing Mom. She duplicated Dad’s death, except that she took…
Mom’s favorite song
October 14, 2013
Mom was a music prodigy. She gave her first public piano recital at the age of four. She quit playing when she was sent to boarding school at five due to family problems. Someday I’ll write about that. Mom’s time in the boarding school led directly to her death eighty years later. Since there was…
Mom has died.
October 13, 2013
She died at 12:00 p.m., October 13, 2013, at the age of eighty-five. Dr. Leberthon kept his word and saved her from pneumonia. She died of cardiac arrest, which occurred after she went into a coma. Her death was very peaceful. She simply stopped. Thank you, Dr. Leberthon. Another miracle. You saved Mom from suffocating….
Why I don’t hate, Part Two
October 10, 2013
I’ve just discovered that my Extravagumbo Website is worthless, and I can’t get a response from the people who made it. I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how to write a description for my Website that will show up on search engines, but nobody can or will help me. Nobody cares. People to…