Ten years!?
Sep. 11th, 2010 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hoveringsombreroEDIT! It is now the 12th, had a conversation with my father earlier today, and he informed me that I'd gotten my year wrong. Grandpa Carl died in 1999! so it has been 11 years! I thought about going through and just retconning this entry, but decided against it.
If you've ever had any significant direct conversation with me around this time of year, you'd know that the 11th of September which is most significant to me was the one in 2000.
11 September, 2000 is the day on which we held the memorial service for my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Carl, in Oregon. He was the first grandparent that I lost, and the one with whom I got along the best.
This day was a significant event for those reasons and also because it was the first memorial/funeral that I'd been to that didn't leave me feeling depressed and scared about the probably potential nothingness of death. Some may call it ghosts or spirits, but I think that people just leave an echo. SDAs believe that death is a long "sleep" until Jesus returns. But for me, and my father, despite his beliefs, we FELT Grandpa Carl's presence at the memorial. We talked about it at length later that day, a few of the family also felt the same and said so. I think it made my father question his exact beliefs on the state of death, but most importantly, it made it easier for everyone who felt it.
Now, my conclusion is the echo theory, people leave an impact, and impression on other people, I do not think it was any kind of ghost or spirit, but even if death is likely just a nothing end. It is not for the people you leave behind. Your memory lives, your impact lives.
I think this is the only actual sort of haunting, and sometimes it's quite lovely. Grandpa Carl specifically told us all, repeatedly, not to make him a saint, he hated that. So the memorial was mostly just family telling interesting or funny stories. And when the minister got up and started going on about how wonderful Grandpa Carl was, and started verging into implication of sainthood, us children and grandchildren had a very hard time stifling the giggles as we imagined Grandpa Carl's reaction if he were there.
It doesn't feel like ten years, time is crazy. I wish that I had some sort of insightful or profound way to end this entry, but I do not. The world trade center attacks the following year were certainly awful, but they did not personally affect me or hold as much significance in my life as the loss and memorial of Grandpa Carl.
If you've ever had any significant direct conversation with me around this time of year, you'd know that the 11th of September which is most significant to me was the one in 2000.
11 September, 2000 is the day on which we held the memorial service for my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Carl, in Oregon. He was the first grandparent that I lost, and the one with whom I got along the best.
This day was a significant event for those reasons and also because it was the first memorial/funeral that I'd been to that didn't leave me feeling depressed and scared about the probably potential nothingness of death. Some may call it ghosts or spirits, but I think that people just leave an echo. SDAs believe that death is a long "sleep" until Jesus returns. But for me, and my father, despite his beliefs, we FELT Grandpa Carl's presence at the memorial. We talked about it at length later that day, a few of the family also felt the same and said so. I think it made my father question his exact beliefs on the state of death, but most importantly, it made it easier for everyone who felt it.
Now, my conclusion is the echo theory, people leave an impact, and impression on other people, I do not think it was any kind of ghost or spirit, but even if death is likely just a nothing end. It is not for the people you leave behind. Your memory lives, your impact lives.
I think this is the only actual sort of haunting, and sometimes it's quite lovely. Grandpa Carl specifically told us all, repeatedly, not to make him a saint, he hated that. So the memorial was mostly just family telling interesting or funny stories. And when the minister got up and started going on about how wonderful Grandpa Carl was, and started verging into implication of sainthood, us children and grandchildren had a very hard time stifling the giggles as we imagined Grandpa Carl's reaction if he were there.
It doesn't feel like ten years, time is crazy. I wish that I had some sort of insightful or profound way to end this entry, but I do not. The world trade center attacks the following year were certainly awful, but they did not personally affect me or hold as much significance in my life as the loss and memorial of Grandpa Carl.
