Posted by finnegan at ool-44c1ded3.dyn.optonline.net on December 10, 2003 at 13:23:21:
In Reply to: no, not bad at all....completely understandable posted by xnavygrl on December 10, 2003 at 12:52:53:
: And, no, I don't think it's bad to have waited three years. Hell, I have no idea how long it's going to take me to face some stuff where Dad's concerned. He was a musician and turned us all on to various types of music from the time we were born, so one thing I did immediately (within the first month) was burn a cd of songs that reminded us all of him. Songs that played when he danced with us at our weddings, songs he used to sing to us, songs by bands he loved, etc. It was very cathartic. I sent a copy to everyone in the family. That was about it for me. I'm a wimp.
To deal with it head on like that, and actively go out of your way to make something in memory of him like that and so soon after his passing means that you are far from a wimp. As far as timing goes with many things you never can predict. Things are always different, the people, the places, situations. The circumstances were far from ideal or even remotely normal with my family, a lot of off the wall things kept happening. It was a real, quick deal with this, move on, here comes another. This past October though, i had a dream with my mother in it. It was very much a "this happened, i'm back, we're going to make things better again" kind of dream that you didn't want to wake up from, and after having it, feeling so bad you wish you never did. I took the dream with the upcoming birthday as a sign that it was time.
It's weird, but thankfully, it is a once in a lifetime thing. Which also means that you want to handle as best you can, because there won't be another time to try to go about it again, however. I know my older brother ever grows up he's going to have a lot of guilt over how he dealt with my mother's illness and everything afterwards.
That CD was a great idea. My ex-girlfriend's grandfather passed away last year( happened before i met her though), and he was very much into music. Before he passed away he had made on last album he sung on, not sure if he played any instruments, but my ex's grandmother made copies of the album for everyone which was very sweet. The ex was real close with him. She had a hard time listening to the CD, but you could tell she enjoyed have this piece of him to remember when she played it for me and told me about him. I imagine similar good things coming from what you did for your family.
-finn