A real update

[theyellowhobbit]

I stayed at my Grandma's most of Friday. I was woken up at 6, actually got out of bed at 6:30, letf at 7, and got to Grandma's around 7:30-8:00. During the car-ride, Chuck Boyars called me [since I had posted to the ng about my Grandpa] which was very nice of him. {A few other people e-mailed me, but I had no internet access...}
Most of the day was spent arranging things, talking to Rabbis, calling people, and answering the phone. At one point my parents and Grandma were at the funeral home, and Vera (Grandma's helper-person who had been watching Grandpa during the last few weeks) was shopping, and I was all alone at home. The phone must have rang once every 10 minutes.
Then everyone got back, and Rabbi Lehman came over to figure out the eulogy that he's giving. It ran pretty close to Shabbat [which was starting at 3:58]
I barely had enough time to shower and get changed, and I had forgotten some essentials, like a contact case and solution, and my Tamora Pierce book which I left at Grandma's. Oh well. Shabbat was short anyways.

I stayed a the Yavners, who were only 3 minutes away, but weather made it a 10 minute drive. We had a wonderful Friday night dinner [with this cool couple, the husband was a Jewish studies prof at Brown] and I went to bed uber-early, having only gotten 4.5 hours of sleep. [I had also taken a nap between candlelighting and dinner.]
After 14 hours!!! of sleep I went to the Raskins for lunch. There were tons of people there, which at first intimidated me, but it ended up being really nice. I tried to get away with not mentioning why I was here, and almost did, but there's a point when people ask so many questions and you run out of answers. I don't want everyone to pity me for my Grandfather's death. I feel bad having to push back a paper for it. I feel like it's cheating. I'm not the one in mourning, I'm not too distraught to study. And I feel horrible about not feeling horrible.
After playing cards with the Raskin kids [we were playing president, and by the last 2 rounds I was in office] I went back to the Yavners' house for shal-shuddis. It was just Esta and me.

Then everyone came back from shul and we did havdallah and I was picked up by Dad and Jon and we went back to Grandma's. A few of Grandma's friends came over to visit, and we didn't have dinner until almost 9. There was a machloket about eating meat [apparently you can after the burial, which really surprised me considering you can't eat meat during the 9 days...] which got resolved by me calling Rabbi Seif.

Dad is still in the process [or was as of 11] of writing his eulogy, which I'm giving for him tomorrow. I couldn't write anything too different from Jon's because we have pretty much the same memories of Grandpa because we did everything together, and Dad will be too emotional to speak tomorrow. I have to decypher his handwriting and type up the speech, which now is 7 minutes long. Jon's is under a page. I'm thinking we'll need an intermission for Dad's!

I got home at 10:30, to a very annoying Mittens who demands that I stop typing and pet him.

arigi called about 30 minutes ago, and we talked for a good 23 minutes [how I love cellphones]. And then I started writing this.

Comments

[kressel.livejournal.com]

That's so special that you're delivering the eulogy. My first reaction is to say "hatzlacha rabba" but under the circumstances, it doesn't seem quite right.

[flubber3m.livejournal.com]

i'm soooo sorry... call me if you need someone to talk to!