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Memores acti prudentes futuri


You're unsure if I am a loose end or a strand
that waits for you to mend or understand
A few words
"When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness."
~ D.H. Lawrence

"Is the meaning of life defined by its duration? Or does life have a purpose so large that it doesn't have to be prolonged at any cost to preserve its meaning?"

"Living is not good, but living well. The wise man, therefore, lives as well as he should, not as long as he can... He will always think of life in terms of quality not quantity... Dying early or late is of no relevance, dying well or ill is... even if it is true that while there is life there is hope, life is not to be bought at any cost."
~ Seneca

"People will tell you nothing matters, the whole world's about to end soon anyway. Those people are looking at life the wrong way. I mean, things don't need to last forever to be perfect."
~ Daydream Nation

"All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories-- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death."
~ The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

"The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road."
~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
~ William Blake
TICoSME
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dead winter (has some explicit stuff)
Devilbear: The Grimoires of Bearalzebub (PG-13?)
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Jhonen Vasquez's site
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The trip to LA
Saturday, April 16, 2016
"She used to tell me to marry Chinese, because she didn't want any half-breeds in the family. Later on she softened and changed it to 'Christian only, but no blacks.'"

There was an open casket viewing the evening before the memorial service. It was on the second floor of the Rose Hills mortuary, room 209. We signed our names in the guestbook before entering the room, which held a handful of people, silent, heads bowed. As we walked toward the front, we could see that what we initially took for postures of reverence was actually just everyone looking down at their phones. I recognized almost no one. There were expensive looking fresh flower wreaths on stands propped up against the walls, with big ribbons declaring who they were from. The one that stood out to me most was an arrangement whose ribbon was dedicated to "BELOVED NIECE", from "UNCLE PAK-KI". Auntie Daphne was in her 90s. How could she have an uncle who was still alive?

My parents and I stood before the casket for a moment, looking at the body. It was the first time I could remember not feeling afraid of my great aunt. My most vivid memory of her was from when I was a child, and we visited her at her big house in the hills of Monterey Park. She served me and my brother little Jell-O molds with mandarin oranges inside, and I didn't want to eat mine. My refusal made her very angry, and she yelled at me.

Whoever prepared the body had done a decent job, although the makeup on her face didn't quite cover up all her liver spots. She had lipstick on. I couldn't remember if she had worn much lipstick while she was alive. She looked strangely small, even young, in a way, lying there, even though her hair was completely white. I had never seen her with white hair before. She used to dye it a reddish black color, and it had never occurred to me that she might have white hair underneath the dye.

After the viewing, we drove to visit another great aunt's grave. My parents had described the size of the cemetery to me on the drive down south, but I hadn't been sure how to imagine it. Rose Hills is the biggest cemetery in the world, I am told. It has a big white sign of its name perched on a hill, reminiscent of the Hollywood sign. You can see the grounds from a distance, because the open, sprawling lawns covering the hills are so green and empty compared to everything else in the area. There are enough people buried there to form their own city.

My mom placed some flowers in the vase at my other great aunt's grave, and my dad remarked on the veracity of the inscription of her grave marker: She gave so much, and asked for so little. I didn't know Auntie Jane well either, but she had always seemed much kinder than Auntie Daphne, even if I was still slightly frightened by her because of her age. Auntie Jane didn't have much money, but she used to send my brother and me gift cards of small amounts for Christmas. I never had much use for a $10 gift card to McDonald's, but it was a thoughtful gesture.

At the memorial service the next day, the pastor who spoke for the majority of the service invited anyone who wanted to say a few words to come up and speak. Nobody moved. Eventually the pastor asked one of Aunt Daphne's nephews, who had agreed prior to the service to speak, to come up. It seemed they had expected more people to want to say something. After the nephew had given his speech, the pastor went over more of his memories of Aunt Daphne, but one of my mom's cousin's stepped up and asked if he could still speak. He started with "Aunt Daphne loved us, but she didn't always show it in the best way..." My brother later remarked that that was the most truthful speech given during the service.

Aunt Daphne didn't have any children of her own, and one of my mom's cousins told us that Aunt Daphne had never wanted any. She was married two times; the first time, her husband went to Hong Kong and didn't come back, so she went to find out what had happened. When she confronted him, he disowned her in front of the family and said that she had only married him for his money, but had never loved him. He had found someone younger, who did love him, and he told Aunt Daphne that she could keep the money, but they were through.

Years later, she married again, but her second husband left her too. Cousin Grace told us that Aunt Daphne had been very candid about why, and had said that she simply wasn't a good wife. Her husband was an affectionate man, and she didn't provide a loving, caring environment for him, nor was she particularly supportive or nurturing. After he left, she was single for the next forty or fifty years.

There was no information about Aunt Daphne's life in the pamphlets we received for the memorial service, and few details of her past were shared. My maternal grandmother's side of the family has numerous stories of scandal and drama, and my own mom very rarely talks about anything regarding them. She almost never says anything regarding her own past, either, although she will if prompted. In contrast, my dad tells stories about his and his family's lives all the time.

After the service, we went to visit the grave of my mom's cousin. He committed suicide when I was 10, and I don't think I ever met him. His brother led us to the site and pointed out the inscription on the wall, then showed us an empty space nearby and said, proudly, "And that's me, there." He talked about how all the spaces on the wall had been sold out for at least 15 to 20 years. My mom inquired as to how much the spot had cost, but he brushed past the question and said that he had tried to get a deal on a nicer plot somewhere else, but Rose Hills hadn't been willing to accommodate his request. "So I just have to be buried next to Ophelia" he said, with a trace of disdain in his voice. I guess he found something distasteful about having his remains placed in a wall next to a stranger's. He made a few more jokes about having to be next to the strange woman before driving off.

In the car ride on the way home, my parents talked a little about my mom's side of the family. My dad said that he felt like "the dark side of the family" had contributed a lot to who Aunt Daphne was, and who my mom is. My mom talked about how at family gatherings, her parents would get into huge arguments with Aunt Daphne, but it seemed normal to my mom and her sisters, and they would just go watch TV in another room. She listed some of the programs they watched with an air of nostalgia.

The more I learn about that side of the family, the more I realize how dysfunctional they are, and the only reason I never thought of them that way before was because nobody talked about it. But well, maybe that's why they don't talk about the past...

---Edit---

Man, this guy is awesome. I want to learn all the things from him.
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