An ounce of blood
During my trip back to Washington, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on certain things. It’s been really nice to take a step back and jsut, for lack of a better quote, “drink it in.” There are a few things that I want to talk about, and get off my chest, but that might have to wait for another time.
I visited my grandmother today, Virginia Doyle, at her nursing home. The reason she is at a nursing home is because she has some pretty bad Alzheimer’s disease. It’s really sad to see a person kind of wither away mentally in front of you. But, thankfully, she has som good days and today was one of them. She remembered me and my mother when we came in right away, and that’s a huge surprise to us. While the other residents were stumbling and gating around, much like zombies, my grandma was able to show us her room and introduce to other residents.
We took her to Starbuck’s and a Barnes an Noble, because she likes to walk around and look at the book jackets. While there, we were talking about family, life, and everything in between. I got a chance to speak alone with her as if she was alive during the 40’s. She talked about having married a good husband, Eugene, who was a member of the US Navy during world war 2. She spoke about his ship (the USS Chicago) being sunk off the coast of Australia, and how he got diabetes from the shock of the cold water turning off his insulin production. She then talked about my ancestors who include an Irishman (Finnigan) who fought in the Civil War, my cousins who flew planes, a distant relative who ran a news network for CBS, and an uncle who was a Representative for the state of Illinois.
I never knew my family had so much history. I suppose it’s just a given, as your tree expands so fast after a couple of generations, to have some amazing people in your line. We talked a little bit about my father’s side, of which we are Native American to a small degree. (Mae Flowers, I shit you not, is one of our older ancestors). And then I found out, through the wonder of technicality, that I am Jewish. It was really fascinating to hear my Mother and Grandmother talk. It was something out of an SAT reading comprehension section- All lame and girly.
Aside from that, my trip has been pretty good. I cooked steaks for my family last night, and then made some pizza today- and they ate it all up. Like I said earlier, when my dad goes back for thirds of food, it must be good. and he definitely kept going back for my pizzas. Even though I think they are jsut ok most of the time, other people seem to really enjoy them.
I also got to talk to Mike a lot yesterday, and it’s awesome to be able to pick up wherever we leave off. We discussed me coming back to Seattle to live, and he answered with an emphatic yes, almost reeking of desperation- but i share in the enthusiastic ideal. Maybe in a couple of years after I’ve earned my stripes in the working world. Who knows.
To be honest, I’ve got a lot of great friends in LA, and a few amazing ones (yeah, Steph, it’s you) but I miss “home” at times. It’s interesting, and I generally don’t think about it often. But it’s hard to deny when you’re there.
“An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship”
Incidentally, I don’t really agree with this quote. It was just short, and family related. I think a more apt quote is “Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends”