RIP Doris Jones

My grandmother died today after being in hospital for most of the week. I'm not actually sure how old she was, nearly or just over 90, I think. She'd been falling apart for years: disintigrating discs, lung and heart problems. A lifetime of smoking, drinking, and fatty fried foods did a number on her. We're really, honestly, all kind of amazed she lasted this long. Held on by pure bloody mindedness, we've always said.

My grandmother wasn't exactly a good woman. She was manipulative, and tended to play the family against each other for her own amusement. She was petty, and often spiteful towards people she felt had slighted her in some way. She loved to do anything she could to get attention, even if it meant making her family angry.

But dammit, I loved the old bat. She's been one of the constants in my life. Not really someone to look up to, but at least someone who was there. For all her faults, she could be very generous, doting, and loving of her grandchildren, and her great-granddaughter, my grand-niece(?...my cousin's daughter). She paid for a good portion of my trip to the UK, something for which I will always be grateful.

I'm going to miss her quite a bit. Mom says that she left provisions to NOT have a funeral, she didn't want people standing around and mourning her. That seems to be a theme in my family, the lack of funerals. My Aunt Sandy and my Uncle Bill both specifically stated they didn't want funerals. So we're going to hold something of a wake when I go out for CAiNE in early April.

I got the news at work tonight, so I went home early. Did the only thing I knew how to do to keep my mind off things: went out and bought myself a good, big dinner of some of my favourite food, and just sat in the restaraunt and read. I didn't really want to be alone, but didn't want to be in public around the dorm. Somehow the presence of strangers is more comforting than the people I live with in this building. I'm eating chocolate cake right now, I need the sugar and endorphins, and I'm going to watch The Illusionist. Then maybe Big Trouble in Little China.

I was supposed to write an English essay tonight comparing the theme of loss in Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece" and Marlowe's "Hero and Leander". But its not such a great theme for me to write on right now, so I guess I'm going to push my timetable back a day or so.

I'm putting the Way Down stories on hold for another week or two. I'm just too busy to get them written, between 5 papers, plotting for Toronto Awakening, and writing plotkits for CAiNE. I'll start again on the week of the 19th, when I'm back from BC, during the exam period.