It's Been a Year
Time is an elusive thing, more so the more you think about it in too much detail . . . I start to get lost in the movement of the planets, which is fundamentally the only means by which we perceive the passage of time. Incidentally, the more I think of time in that context, the easier it is to regard COVID-19 as a minor blip in our lives. Granted, it's a truly fatal "blip" for far too many, and the whole reason it's even as fatal as it is, is because of people who refuse to accept that it takes time . . . and in so doing, they refuse to take necessary precautions, and then just add to the cycle of all this shit taking longer than it ever needed to. But, either way, in another year, especially two years, we'll essentially be back to a new normal. Or whatever "normal" the effects of climate change allow us to maintain, anyway; that's a separate issue.
The point is, this will all be behind us before we know it, really. Time marches on no matter what. Because, consider this: Mom dying last summer makes it easy for me to forget how much time has passed since I last actually saw her. When she died, it had been a little over six months, relatively recent in the grand scheme of things. As of today? exactly one year since I saw Mom for the very last time in my life, having no idea at the time that's what it was. We all behaved as though there would be plenty more visits, for at least several years to come.
The truth is I prefer it this way. My nieces, Nikki and Becca, having gone to visit Mom on her deathbed, were both very traumatized by it—and they both effectively validated my decision to avoid it. And I do want to be ever-clear about this: I would not have made the same decision if Mom had been conscious, and her prospects still just as grim. She would have wanted to see me, I'm sure, and I would have dropped everything and gone. But with her unconscious and on life support, within days long past when she had long insisted she would want to have been taken off of it (her wishes not respected only because of Bill, and understandably so from his perspective, but that didn't make it right), and with hospital staff repeatedly telling me there was no expectation of her waking up again, I just saw not utility in it. Mom lived her life on her terms and I'm a little annoyed she was denied the right to die on her own terms as well, but what's done is done. And I still think my choice to go forward with Shobhit's and my planned anniversary trip to the coast was the right one.
And the net result was that, our previous trip to Wallace, Idaho in December 2019, was my final memories of her. It only hit me today that those memories are now a full year ago when that photo came up as I scrolled through my Facebook Memories. Gabriel felt certain I would eventually regret my choice, but I do not, and I'm certain I never will. The choice I made, made no difference to Mom whatsoever. It made a huge difference to me, however. I love that a perfectly lovely, routine, annual Christmastime visit is the last memories I will ever have of her. That's much better than the memories ending with images of her in a hospital bed without even knowing I was there.
And for the record, I would also stress, still, that a decision like this is very much dependent on circumstance. I rather doubt it will be the same when Dad and Sherri go, considering I was far closer to them for far longer, both emotionally and geographically. Whenever it's time for them to go, I expect the whole thing to be very different. It won't be any particularly predictable circumstance on its own either, but whatever it is, it will be completely different from how Mom died, I'm sure. And whatever opportunity I have to say goodbye to them, I will certainly take. I just hope those moments are still a long way off. The losses in 2020 were more than enough to last a while, thank you very much.
As for yesterday? There's not a huge amount to tell, although the one notable thing that occurred was my brief trip to the Broadway post office right after work. I must say, it was almost shockingly painless—and quick!—even though I had quadruple the packages to mail compared to most years, and I would assume holiday package mailing in 2020 just has a higher volume overall. You'd never know it from the post office yesterday.
I mailed out select calendars, the ones I could not possibly hand-deliver this year. Most years I only mail the one to South Australia for Uncle David and Mary Ann, and there was that one this year; but I also had to mail to Bill in Wallace, Idaho; Christopher and Tristen in Wallace, Idaho; Nikki and TJ in Spokane; and Becca and Tyler in Lake Sevens, near Everett north of Seattle. The rest, I will hand deliver on Christmas Day, where we will spend some time in Dad and Sherri's backyard, and weather permitting, take a walk with Dad on a recently finished nearby bike path. A couple of those will still take a while to get to their final destinations, but I still figure Dad and Sherri will find themselves in Shelton sooner than later and can take Jennifer's calendar to her; and surely David will see Gina soon enough and Gina can pass his and Jackie's calendar on to them. Otherwise, the other recipients are sure to be stopping by Dad and Sherri's house at some point or another on or soon after Christmas, and they can just pick theirs up.
I did check last year and it cost me something like $23 to mail the one calendar to Australia. If Mom were still alive, we'd likely be headed over to Idaho this coming weekend, and could hand deliver their calendars, as well as to Christopher and even to both Nikki and Becca who I'm sure would both be visiting there within the next month or so anyway. There are no more Christmastime visits to Wallace, though, so that's that; I sent Bill's and Christopher's calendars in one package but with Nikki and Becca that still accounted for four separate packages, and three mailer envelopes I had to pay for (I saved on a fourth by mailing Bill's and Christopher's/Tristen's calendar in the one small, flat-ish box I got from Costco when picking up the finished calendars on Saturday), and even the Australia package alone went up to something like $27 which is a somewhat astonishing 17% increase in cost after only one year. My total cost at the post office yesterday amounted to roughly $63.
This is precisely why I want to hand deliver the rest. Otherwise I'd be adding another whopping $135, give or take, just in mailing costs.
So, I walked over to the post office as soon as I finished work yesterday, walked up to the envelope stock and grabbed three needed envelopes, and then went to the back of the socially-distanced line. Then I remembered I needed the customs form for the Australia package, so I had to go and grab that again and I then had to go three spots further back in line. I smartly brought a pen with me and used walls next to myself as a place to hold the envelopes and write addresses on them. To my astonishment, the line moved so quickly, it became a race as to whether I could get all the writing I needed done before I reached the front of the line! I was just barely getting to finishing filling out the customs form when I finally reached the window. And then I got all packages out in the mail without a hitch.
I have no idea whether the same mail delays are going on now as had been happening with ballots just prior to the election, but I figured better safe than sorry, and I should get these packages out in the mail as soon as possible—particularly the one to Australia. There are two points to consider here, though. Getting the packages in the mail by December 7, even if there are delays, none of the domestic ones are going any further away than Idaho so in all likelihood they will arrive within a few days maximum. Australia is a bigger question; that takes weeks usually even when things are normal. But, whatever; I bet they will still get it in December, even if it's after Christmas. And when it's a calendar that's the gift, all that matters really is that they get it by January anyway! So I think I'm all good. Right now I just have about half the remaining calendars still to wrap.
Once Shobhit got home from work, we went to the store for some gram flour, then came back and made delicious onion, potato, mushroom, and asparagus pakoras for dinner. Most unhealthy but most delicious. We then watched an episode of His Dark Materials on HBO, and two episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Hulu.
One last thing: I just finished up this week's Office Lunch Meetup on Zoom, having leftover salad for my lunch. We got a new attendee today! Katherine hopped on, maybe ten or fifteen minutes into the hour. She used to sit in the desk behind me at the office, the one Tracy officially sits in now even though we're all working from home. (She was there when I got back from Australia in March.) Brent, who had not joined in several weeks, returned as well; so did Noah, and Adrienne, and of course as always, Rebecca. In sharp contrast to last week's three people with just Rebecca, Andrew and myself, this week we peaked at six people. Still a pretty small number but at least it was twice as many as last week!
We talked about many things, including movies and how we're going to start a "Teams" group for movie and TV recommendations, which I am quite looking forward to.
[posted 1:01 pm]