Life is a Cycle...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Sometimes the Tires Go Flat

Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Uncle Vevy (Velvel). All are gone within days of each other.

This confirms that I can never talk about death without also thinking, and most of the time talking, about affirming life: The popular poster of Farrah Fawcett helped accelerate my lesbian awakening when I first saw it while descending the escalator at Caldor, a department store in my hometown of Stamford. A few years later, I was inspired to "shake my body (down to the ground)" by Michael Jackson.

Unfortunately, I didn't know my uncle very well, nor his children -- my first cousins -- till we were adults, as our fathers were estranged. I blogged about this recently.

I'm feeling grief at my lack of grief, and I am wishing that we could go back to when I was little and we were getting together with them at least once in awhile. I have just one, vague memory of our backing out of their New Jersey home's driveway, sitting low (due to my small height back then) in the backseat of our station wagon, when I was probably around four years old. I had gotten to play with my older cousin, Yanai, and it had been a fun day. His little sister, Sarit, would be born a year later.

I'm grieving missed opportunities right now, grieving that I have more memories of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson than of my own uncle, aunt and cousins.

We will visit with Sari (for short) and Yanai upon our return from San Francisco and God, please help me have helpful things to say, and more important to be able to listen utterly-intentionally/attentively.

God, please let my uncle and father be re-united as the close siblings they were when they were kids, if there's an after-life. Also, please let my mother live for many, many more years, and Pat and the rest of my loved ones. Amen.

One of my friends wrote to me, asking if my uncle's passing makes me think about what I'm contributing to this world because it does so for her. If Uncle Vevy caused anyone to pause and consider their life-purpose, that's a bonus contribution he made.