Weekend Stuff
I got thoroughly sunburnt during the ferry trip to scatter Nanny’s ashes. You’d think that under the circumstances I’d be more careful considering that she did die of cancer and all, but I had other things on my mind, such as, “this box of Nanny is much heavier than I expected,” and “I shouldn’t have stood downwind,” and “oh my god I think I just inhaled her!”
My family has started going through Nanny’s things. It’s sad and fantastic all at once, like opening a big, tragic treasure chest. I found a cookie tin filled with letters that my great-grandfather got from his family while he was in France and Germany during World War I, and my mother found a box of letters that my Uncle Rick wrote home during his boot camp on Parris Island. We found my grandmother’s baby book, first communion and confirmation certificates, pictures of relatives and people we don’t know, unsent greeting cards, and boxes upon boxes of general household records such as what bills were paid and who was getting Christmas cards that year. One of the books we found was The Farm and Household Cyclopaedia (ca. 1888) - with 249 illustrations - which is pretty fun to read and see what fun household hints they used back then. I’ll try to find some good passages to post later.
Tags: books, books, boot_camp, box_of_letters, family, family, nanny, treasure_chest, world_war_i
September 10th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
I know I’m odd, but I would probably breathe the ashes of someone I loved in on purpose… Just a little.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
If it was more like dust type of ash and less like BBQ ash it wouldn’t have been as bad.