Well, I buried my brother Rick yesterday
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneThe weird thing was how tremendously relieved I was after it was over! My voice recovered almost immediately - I didn't lose it, it just dropped an octave or so - and my energy came back almost entirely. My back is still massively sore, but that's another matter entirely. I think perhaps that I began mourning him as soon as he entered ICU and that I didn't realize it.
This evening, after stopping at an old friend's open house/party on the way out of town, I heard to Tucson to spend the night. It's maybe a quarter of the way or so to Cloudcroft. And the hotel is past the downtown area, makes it much easier getting out of Tucson - not that it's that difficult, especially given the much lighter Christmas Day driving.
The funeral went well, with one massive surprise. I expect my cousin Ron - who is a preacher - to give a little talk. And instead I ended up giving an extemporaneous eulogy for 20 minutes which went very, very well. I kinda wish it was recorded. I received several compliments on it.
Maybe me delivering the eulogy is part of the relief.
So today I'm off to the U-Haul where I'm storing his truck and camper trailer, I have to move it, also a woman is coming by to inspect it, she's interested in buying it. Can't do the inspection until 30 days after he dies, at that point it can be re-titled. After that I have some errands, then back to where I'm staying to finish packing, get some more rest then head out.
Far too much fun.
I will leave you with this. We wanted a poem for the little handout pamphlet for the grave-side service, and Russet and I didn't like any of the canned ones that the funeral home had available. She started surfing on her phone for ones written by or about gold miners/mining and found an absolutely perfect one! We dropped the third verse and cut down on the fourth and ended up with this. It does a very good job of encapsulating a lot about my brother:
The Men That Don't Fit In
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
-Robert W. Service (condensed)
This evening, after stopping at an old friend's open house/party on the way out of town, I heard to Tucson to spend the night. It's maybe a quarter of the way or so to Cloudcroft. And the hotel is past the downtown area, makes it much easier getting out of Tucson - not that it's that difficult, especially given the much lighter Christmas Day driving.
The funeral went well, with one massive surprise. I expect my cousin Ron - who is a preacher - to give a little talk. And instead I ended up giving an extemporaneous eulogy for 20 minutes which went very, very well. I kinda wish it was recorded. I received several compliments on it.
Maybe me delivering the eulogy is part of the relief.
So today I'm off to the U-Haul where I'm storing his truck and camper trailer, I have to move it, also a woman is coming by to inspect it, she's interested in buying it. Can't do the inspection until 30 days after he dies, at that point it can be re-titled. After that I have some errands, then back to where I'm staying to finish packing, get some more rest then head out.
Far too much fun.
I will leave you with this. We wanted a poem for the little handout pamphlet for the grave-side service, and Russet and I didn't like any of the canned ones that the funeral home had available. She started surfing on her phone for ones written by or about gold miners/mining and found an absolutely perfect one! We dropped the third verse and cut down on the fourth and ended up with this. It does a very good job of encapsulating a lot about my brother:
The Men That Don't Fit In
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
-Robert W. Service (condensed)
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Date: 2025-12-25 02:54 am (UTC)