Can’t Put the Fun in Funeral

It seems to happen more often than not, but people are born, people get married and people die, the major events that litter all our lives.  While I could discuss the where and why I was at a funeral, I think it would be a disservice to the person who passed.  The tone of this blog is, hopefully, much more conversational.

Attendance: Just Show Up

One thing I noticed in the audience was how many people not in my age group were there.  I realise that most people who die are old, which is such a flawed statement I can hardly stand looking at it, but it has some truth to it.  If people are allowed to lead a rich, full life, then they die towards the end of said life.  It stands to reason that most people who would attend a funeral are the person’s peers.  In this case, the woman worked at a non-profit that had quite a few young people in it, myself included.  She sat next to me for several years, tolerated my silliness and lack of professionalism with grace.  She was well liked and well known.  But when I looked around the church, I could count on one hand who many young adults there were that weren’t related to the family.

I don’t know if this is an issue with all of my peers, but it needs to be fixed, rectified and acknowledged.  Just because you feel uncomfortable or don’t ‘like’ funerals isn’t a reason to be rude or disrespectful.  Swallow your pride, take a deep breath and pay your respects to someone, be kind and be giving.  Funerals aren’t fun for anyone, and I saw a great outpouring of support from the company I had been with, and it made me feel good.  It made me feel good that I’d taken the time that not one of my friends did and pay respects to someone who had been kind and comforting, a great contrast to the turmoil that still plagues the association.

Get over yourself and attend a funeral!

It Isn't Baseball, so Crying is OK

I realise that some people hire mourners to make appearances at these sorts of events, but that isn’t necessary, not really.  Funerals are sad, you’re celebrating the fact that you will never see someone ever again.  Funerals are permanent and forever, and it is sad.  We don’t go because we want to grab onto the casket and go under with them (though movies and TV would make you think so).  It is okay to cry, to be upset, to lament what you should have said or done that you can’t change now.

I foolishly only brought 2 tissues, and paid for it, but I think there really should be standing boxes strewn about, it isn’t like they won’t be needed.  It is totally reasonable to cry your eyes out and be fine as soon as you exit the church.

The only caveat I’d bring to this is there doesn’t need to be overly demonstrative crying going on.  It is distracting, I grant you, but it is probably not always appropriate.  I know this might be a touchy subject, but at least I’ll do my part to keep it to silent crying, and maybe we all can give it a try?

How Long Should a Service Be?

I sometimes wonder when I’m sitting in really long services if secretly the person who passed is chuckling at how silly we all are crying for hours on end.  This is more of – if you’re about to die or host a funeral, it doesn’t need to lag on.  People are already upset that are there, to make them sit through tearful speeches without ‘assistance’ is slightly unkind.  Being Muslim, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that anyway.

I have only attended a few funerals, the Muslim ones I’ve gone to have been short and sweet, in and out and at someone’s house enjoying eats within an hour.  Christian funerals are much more orchestrated and requiring a lot of standing up and sitting down, and also singing.  I won’t lie, I didn’t sing, but I did get up and down countless times.

I can’t say that if a loved one has died you don’t have the right to make a speech, and I was treated to some great speeches today, but on the whole, they are usually depressing and involve a lot of crying by the speaker.  I was pleasantly surprised when the kids of the woman who passed had some hilarious stories that weren’t denigrating, but just were, and they made me smile.

All in all, a funeral shouldn’t be something to make people even sadder.  We all know what we are facing and we will cope in our own way, the key, to me, is to make the transition for everyone that much more bearable.  Tell a funny story, an anecdote, a quote, something embarrassing, but don’t make people cry even more than they already are!

The one thing I want to really highlight was how nice it was to see so many familiar faces supporting one another.  Family doesn’t just mean the people you’re genetically related to.  Family can be anything, as wide-reaching as a university experience and as tight-knit as a small department.  You spend more time at work than you do at home, to deny that you care about the people you work with might seem ‘cool,’ it is childish.  I’m glad I went and I wish more people my age would understand the importance of attending funerals.  Funerals aren’t about having fun, but paying your respects to someone who deserves it.

A Capital Loss

Yesterday, almost like clock-work, at exactly 9 AM, the Washington Capitals fired their coach.  Over the course of the last four years, Bruce Boudreau, has helmed the Capitals to four consecutive South East Conference titles, one Presidents Trophy (the most points/wins in the regular season) and a playoff appearance every single year.  But with each year came the same tired result.  While the regular season brought forth myriad accolades for the players and team, the trophy that they all sought, Lord Stanley’s Cup was never within reach.

I can’t say I’m surprised by the outcome.  And my valiant readers shouldn’t be surprised that I feel compelled to write about it.  I’ve me Coach Boudreau, more than once, I think, and he was always genuine and full of energy.  What may have been his downfall was his down to earth nature.  While you can see other coaches will make a clear line in the sand of what is or isn’t acceptable, Boudreau wanted to be everyone’s friend and be the nice guy.  Unfortunately for Boudreau, in DC, nice guys finish last.  In another place, with another club, I can imagine great success for him.  But as I listened to the locker room interviews with the players, it was very clear to me what had happened.

As a fan, I have little choice but stand behind my team, the team I’ve spent a lot of time, money and heartache on, but I can’t say that I’m not disappointed.  You look at players like Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Mike Green, Nicklas Backstrom, the list goes on and on.  If you follow hockey at all, these are supposedly super stars, or stars at the very least.  In the regular season, stopping any one of these players from scoring should be impossible, but given this last few months, the team has been terrible.  Every single man on that roster was completely and utterly disinterested in what Coach Boudreau had to say.  And I find myself frustrated that a group of grown men, not boys, not children, men, can’t do their jobs.

So, for the combined salary of many millions of dollars, they just didn’t like what they were being told, and how they were being told it?  And this is acceptable?  It is a sad state of affairs that a group of men, talented and capable, can not follow simple instructions, or find the strength within to do what they are being paid to do.

I have always had a hard time with this issue, struggling with it in my own way.  The only people to blame for the Capitals failures are the players, not the coach.  And while it is easy to replace the coach, what Boudreau did in four short years can’t be discounted, and won’t.  Boudreau will land on his feet, smarting from his sharp turn with the Capitals, but it is the players, the ones that remain that seemed so gleeful yesterday that are no under the gun.  If they don’t ‘decide’ to play tonight, and going forward, the team won’t be the same, because the players will be held responsible, and that would be an unfortunate end to a very talented, very gifted and very unmotivated, self-righteous team.

One Missed Flight

There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. - Victor Hugo

Two years ago yesterday, my mother and father rushed down to Florida (we live in Virginia) as my aunt had called to indicate that my grandfather was getting worse, and not better, after his latest bought with cancer, this time oesophageal as opposed to lung cancer, which he’d beaten almost two decades ago.  I didn’t go; not wanting to miss work, or go running onto a plane and paying God knows what to get there.  It is now, on the anniversary of his death, that I reflect on what was one of my poorest decisions.

I was never close to my grandfather, either of them actually.  My father’s father died when I was less than fifteen, I’d met him maybe twice.  I knew of him, but never knew him.  My mother’s father, as is often the case I find, we knew quite well.  My mother’s parents have always been a huge part of our life, and it is rather telling, I think, about the family aspect that men or women have as they start their own families.  I find men seem less committed to keeping their family ties close, whereas girls have a tendency to maintain very strong bonds.

My grandfather and grandmother lived in India most of their lives, having an arranged marriage.  My grandmother stayed at home with the kids while my grandfather was a professor at Delhi University.  He was a very intelligent man, very well read, and studied at Leeds in England, a premier school even then.  He penned a book or two and contributed to a dictionary between Arabic, English and Urdu, or what you Americans call ‘Indian.’  I never really knew much about my grandfather save for the interactions we had within the family.

As you may know, I’m not terribly popular in the family.  I never do things the ‘way’ you should, but I’m always respectful.  My grandfather never really liked me, I think.  If he did, it was never clear.  Despite that, duty to family is something most girls in my culture are indoctrinated to.  When he moved here, after my grandmother died, he stayed briefly with my aunt before destroying the relationship between my aunt and uncle, and was forced to move to Virginia.  He lived with us for some years, and while I can’t say I ever looked back on that time as positive, he was another family member you had to live with.  I find that American families I see have a tendency to ship their older parents into homes, as opposed to taking care of them.  I can’t even imagine putting my parents in a home.  And I couldn’t imagine putting my grandfather in a home, but he was never dependent upon anyone for much.

After staying with us for a short period of time, my uncle moved to West Virginia, and he decided to move out there.  It wasn’t long before he had worn out his welcome, so my parents ‘convinced’ my sister and I to buy a home for my grandfather to live in.  This is one reason I don’t heed my parent’s financial advice today, as I’m still paying that debt, long after he’s passed on.  He was thankful, of course, he knew the burden we were taking on, though I doubt he ever fully realised why it was necessary.

My grandfather, like most older people, demand respect from the youth, but in this day and age, and I find on this site a lot, young people don’t show any respect to anyone older than them.  It is as if young people have seen it and done it all, which is not even close to true.  I read the general rudeness on this site and often think of the tart comments you’d receive from my grandfather.  He never outright denigrated or insulted anyone, no, he was far too clever for that, he would use the passive aggressive approach and loop it to infinity.  If you were being too loud, he would say, ‘You’re doing that wonderfully, but can you do it louder?’  As a child, I never understood how condescending he was being, and even now I can’t fault him for it.

On my mother’s side of the family, we always had an unwritten list of who his favourite grandchildren were.  My sister always topped the list, as she was the first grandchild he had, my uncle’s oldest son often swapped second with my uncle’s daughter, while my aunt’s middle daughter and I were in the middle, with my aunt’s oldest daughter always at the bottom.  I have another cousin, but he was born late and never really made the list.  It was quite a bone of contention to increase your standing on the list, but no matter my efforts, I’d never succeed in any substantive way that he’d be interested in.  The key being, the list of things to do, was hidden, it was a mystery.

I realise this entry is starting to look like a rant, but really, I loved my grandfather.  He was my grandfather, and often times, quotes are kind of right, you can’t control how you feel about someone sometimes.  And in this instance that is the case, no matter how inconsequential or insignificant my actions seemed to him, I still wanted to find some common ground.  And I’m not faultless, I’m sure there were times I said or did something that offended him, but it happens in all relationships.

Back to the present, as my parents flew down in haste to Florida, I mulled over my decision.  The very next morning, one of my cousins’s called me, after staying at the hospital the previous night all night, to tell me he was looking worse and worse and I should have flown in with my parents.  At this news I was really shocked.  I hadn’t expected his health to deteriorate so quickly.  In the early 1990’s, he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, after a life of smoking (let that be a lesson to all you smokers out there – though I know it isn’t), this meant that his doctors should be checking on cancer every time he got a check-up.  Imagine our surprise in May of that year that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Oesophageal Cancer, there were three stages that went completely unnoticed.  Needless to say, once the diagnosis was made, it became somewhat psychosomatic, and his spirit fell as he was no longer able to eat solid foods and more that I won’t go into.

The last time I saw my grandfather was about three weeks before he died.  I had flown down with both of my cousins from WVa and my sister, and it was the first time we were all together in a few weeks, as my sister got married earlier that month.  We had a great time over the weekend, but didn’t spend a ton of time with my grandfather, as you might expect, he wasn’t well and wasn’t really up to entertaining.  I’d like to think he was glad we were there, but with him you could never tell.

While I realise this entry has rambled a bit, I feel like I need to reflect on his death, and my decisions that led me not to be there when I probably should have been.  I know now, and then, that I couldn’t do anything to change the circumstances, you can’t alter that path, none of us can.  And I realise not all families are functional, most are dysfunctional.  But when the patriarch of the family dies, I feel like it was important for all of us to be present.

I feel disappointed in myself, and in the information I based my decision off of.  I made assumptions about things that I had no business guessing about.  What frustrates me more is I see myself still making these same sorts of decisions even now.  But to place something like that on chance is poorly thought out.  And I look back now and can easily see that the man was on death’s door.  And no matter the circumstances of our relationship, or lack thereof, it was incumbent upon me to make the right decision.

The sense of regret I feel probably won’t ever go away.  In many ways, by his death, my grandfather brought the family closer together.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, I will more likely remember the hurtful things my grandfather said and did over the positive things, but that is human nature.  I want to say I’ve learned from this, but even now I fall back on bad habits.  The point, if there was one, of this entry, was merely to illustrate how assumptions can hurt you.  Though, there was a lot of other filler in there as well. 

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my Apple tree

Sometimes I take things for granted, we all do, in many aspects of our life; and technology is just one of them.  I can’t ignore, but don’t want to inundate anyone with news about the passing of the Steve Jobs, but it is something worth noting.  Words that are describing him now, in the wake of his passing: visionary, pioneer, courageous, you name it.  And who could deny those monikers?  They are well deserved.  He built something that was unthinkable, he did things people thought would fail because he hadn’t ‘done the research’ or couldn’t know what people wanted.  As someone who has worked in the Information Technology (computers) field my entire adult career (of over 10 years), I can honestly say that I hated Steve Jobs as I hated Bill Gates, but I could never have done my job adequately without either.

Before I was even born, Steve Jobs had already dropped out of college and started working on his idea, making a machine that was easy to use and functional.  Looking back, I can’t imagine where I would be, occupation-wise, without him.  He was the one that started the graphical user interface (GUI) in computers.  If it had been left to Bill Gates, we’d all be memorising code to this day.

What Steve Jobs did can’t be summarised in any eulogies or speeches.  People will try, just check the news sites and see the mass text and video that is appearing out of nowhere.  Like hungry vultures, the news sites finally have something of note to report back on.

But it is people like us, the gamers, computer geeks, regular folks that should take a moment and reflect on what Steve Jobs did to make our lives easier, crazier or fun.  If you had told me ten years ago Apple products would be as prevalent as they are, I would have told you that you’d lost your mind.  When I fist started studying technology, I knew what the Apple could do, but still considered it to be a graphics tool more than anything, something for the art students to use, but normal folks could continue to use the PC.  It did everything they needed.

I wasn’t wrong, but what Steve Jobs did was take his Apple computer concept and build on it in ways that others never would have thought of.  It started slowly, Mac books making appearances here and there, and then out of nowhere, we have the iPod.  I never bought one, I still don’t have one.  I’ve bought them as gifts, whether they are used or not, I couldn’t say.  But the idea, the very idea to be able to have that much music in a tiny little device was unfathomable in the early 2000s.  When I first saw it, I thought, ‘this is idiotic, who is going to buy this.’  And with a new iteration every few seconds, it seemed like a bad idea.

I’m big enough to admit I was wrong.  The iPod was just the beginning of the revolution.  In the decade that I took to my occupation, I saw major changes to the industry.  When I first started, the very idea of having Macs and PC’s in the same network was unheard of.  Today, we’re integrating desktops, laptops, blackberries and a variety of tablets into our everyday business.  None of this would be possible without Steve Jobs.

Even now I have the iPad, and for the love of God, I can’t figure out what to do with it, though all my friends are happily offering to take it off of my hands, I must admit that it is sleek, efficient, fast as all get-out and the design is maddeningly perfect.  I have resisted liking Apple products for years, but after winning my iPad, I knew I wanted an iPhone soon and would probably get the iPod at some point as well.  I knew it, the moment I started mucking around on it, I knew.  And that was what Steve Jobs did, he anticipated what people needed before they realised they needed it.

What is amazing about Jobs is that he dropped out of college, something most of us today would shudder at.  Every day I wonder, as I sit in my office, am I better of here, or is there another version of me, more successful, out there, that I could have been if I hadn’t bothered with quite so much education.  Looking at stories like Jobs’, it makes me very uncertain.  It isn’t always about the book learning that gets you where you are.  And for a man to be the proponent of thinking outside the box, in every sense of the word, without a true degree is unreal, but there it is.

Think back, ten years ago, did you ever think smart phones would be where they are today?  Would you have guessed that the iTunes would be a common site you visited?  So many things Steve Jobs pioneered, made relevant, made versatile, made valuable.  It wasn’t that he created these things from nothing, but he improved upon ideas, stood on the shoulders of giants, and made things larger, reached more audiences, enhanced people’s every day life.

Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect, he had many ideas that never came to fruition, but what made him stand out, what made him impact and change all of our lives was the simple fact that he was a dreamer.  When I heard of his passing, it immediately made me think of Jim Henson.  While a puppeteer isn’t quite the same as the CEO for a computer company, they both achieved similar things – they weren’t quelled by what was right or how things should be done, they dreamed something and made it so.  There aren’t enough dreamers in the world, and we lost a great one last night, and I’ll be hard pressed to find another dreamer like Jobs to materialise again any time soon.

‘Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.’ –Steve Jobs, 2005

The title is a quote from the late Martin Luther King Jr.

To the Bitter End

All things must come to an end.  There was an incident at home and the cup I've been using for years, has seen its best days.

makes me think of this song from the Dixie Chicks, feel free to play while reading, but the volume is kinda low on it...

My mom knocked the cup into something, and now it's done for - final pics taken...

 

I've had this cup before I started my Masters in 2003.

I've had this cup through four different jobs.

I've had this cup when we moved from the house I grew up in to our new house.  I've had this cup for ages.

I've had old bluie for about 7 or 8 years...since before I left NAPA (the National Academy of Public Administration) which was in 2005.  I started there in 2001...so it's been years.  This was from an old conference they had, some Performance Conference, they stopped having them after a couple years due to the economy.

But isn't it funny how you get so attached to something.  I mean, I have an old umbrella, also blue, that I adored and it broke.  Now my cup is down for the count too.  Thankfully I have another one in black, *phew*, crisis averted...