Thursday, January 22, 2004

Goodbye Blue Sky

I come home. My Mom's in a rush, about to leave. She tells me I have to take out the garbage, and also, she holds some papers in her hand. They're job applications I've filled out but never taken in. She says I lied to her, when I never even told her that I dropped them off.

She also says something about not liking this kind of language being used on the internet. I look at the paper she's referring to as he holds it, and realize it's just something I wrote in journalism class. It was just me typing down what people said. I tell her this, and she also mentions that my great grandma violet's dying. I say "oh well" in a quick, off-hand way.

I heard it this morning, as she was talking on the phone. I picked it up, my grandma then telling my mom she's dying. Something about seizures. Something about anti-depressant medication doing it. Then my mom saying "oh my god."

I hung the phone up then. Went to school. I was running late.

I think she deserves to die. I'm not sad about it at all in some immense extent; I mean, I do care she's dying, but it's not an immense caring like I'm sure my mom feels. My mom has fond memories of great grandma Violet taking care of her. For some reason I get the image of a pool, and great grandma Violet chugging on a sig as my mom swims.

I guess this image has a place. In Dickinson, where my mom used to live as a child, there's this hotel called The Oasis. The Oasis's manager knew my grandpa, and I believe my mom used to swim there. So I guess this image has some place actually.

I'll elaborate on why I think she deserves to die.

I've seen the way they talk to grandma violet as she sits in her wheel chair, an oxygen tank at her side, those air pipe-things in her nostrils. They talk to her like she's not a human being.

When we go and take grandma Violet out to eat food at Bonanaza's, which is where we usually go, they talk to her like she's a dog. In that sweet, overly-indearing, idiotic tone someone might talk to a dog--a cat--maybe even a baby. I can't stand it.

And grandma Violet is also extremely weak. You know how much that would suck? To have other people help you to go to the bathroom, to have to be hooked up to an oxygen tank non-stop because you used to smoke, and to also have to be helped in the most simple and easy tasks--like bathing, putting on close, just breathing.

She deserves to die. She's been suffering. I couldn't stand to be in her shoes.

They also have grandma Violet tripped up on endless amounts of pills--what they are, I don't know. Anti-depressants (and they wonder why the poor woman's depressed), probably pain killers, probably some antibiotics. I wouldn't be able to stand it. If I were in her shoes, I would've died a long time ago.

I find it noble she's still alive, but just the way people treat her is so very bittering. She's a human being, she should be treated like that. Sure, she can't do what a human being should be able to do, but I mean, she's a human being nonetheless.

Having read Of Mice and Men recently, I find that this applies to this situation well. In the book, an old man named Candy has this old, smelly, suffering dog. Candy, who, as his name implies, is a sweet man, will not part with the old mongrel no matter what.

In the book, a character named Carlson tells Candy he's going to kill his dog, that he can get a new one. Candy goes against this, but eventually gives up when he sees there's nothing he can do.

Carlson kills the dog--the dog who's suffering and in endless pain, and no longer enjoys life.

Candy later says something to the way of he should've killed the dog himself. It would've felt better that way.

The shooting of Candy's dog forshadows very very lightly of another character's death in the book, Lennie. Lennie is a mentally handicapped, big, strong man. George and Lennie have long been friends, and work together to obtain a dream: a dream of their own farmhouse. Lennie wants to have bunnies.

Lennie is made out much like an animal in the book. When he's grabbing something from a river, it's said he uses his "paws" to do it. And all the characteristics show Lennie as being, closely, an animal. I'd like to think something like a bear.

And what does this show? It shows that human s are as animal as a dog too. That Candy's dog was suffering, it deserved to die--just as Lennie was suffering for doing things he couldn't help.

Lennie eventually kills his own puppy he has. As he's sitting there saying he's in it now, in comes Curley's wife. Curley is the son of the boss of the ranch Lennie and George are working at.

Curley's wife eventually asks Lennie to feel her soft hair, and so he does. Lennie likes grabbing soft things. When Curley's wife asks him to let go, Lennie keeps at it.

Lennie eventually breaks her neck, killing her instantly. He understands what he's done, but didn't mean to.

Lennie's suffering then--suffering with the fact that George might leave him. Geoerge is all Lennie has. Lennie doesn't want to lose him.

Lennie wanders off to a place George told him to go if he's in trouble.

Eventually, Candy finds Curley's wife dead, as well as the pup. George comes in next, then Curley is alerted to the death of his wife.

Curley says he's going to kill the big bastard. That he's going to blow his brains out.

As they storm off, George follows. He's secretly stolen Carlson's luger.

George eventually kills Lennie--a man that's as much an animal as Candy's dog was--not because he wanted to, but because it was for the best. Lennie would be lynched, tried in court and definitely killed.

As George kills Lennie, he tells Lennie to turn around and look out at the lake. He points, and tells Lennie about the farm they'll own. And how he'll get his rabbits. His voice is devoid of emotion. He says it very solemnly.

And then he kills Lennie, while telling him about happy things.

I think this says things well the way I see them; that my grandma Violet has suffered long enough, it's time to put her out of her misery. She doesn't deserve to be stripped of all the things she was given throughout her life--she doesn't deserve to be talked to like she's old and feeble, and that she can't be talked to like the human being she is.

She deserves to die--to die in a good way. To die to end her pain and suffering, to get rid of all the things that plague her. To get rid of her arthritis. To get rid of her constant getting of pneumonia. To get rid of all the endless, seething pain she's under.

When I get old like that, and end up in a nursing home like she is, I won't be able to stand it. I'd rather kill myself than live in a nursing home and be treated like I'm helpless (which, I guess, will be the truth).

And just the same, I think she should die already. She's had enough pain now, and the only reason she's still alive is because of the people that love her. And I think the people that love her need to realize that she's the one that killed herself, in part, by smoking.

And guess what? It's the same thing my mom's doing to herself. She smokes and smokes, and eventually she'll be just where my grandma Violet is, and there's nothing I can do but tell her to stop smoking.

Funny how my last poem I wrote was about how my mom smokes, as if foreshadowing all this. Well, honestly, I didn't think grandma Violet was going to last much longer. She's been getting sick more often.

I think it's time the people that love her let her rest, really. Even as hard as it might be.

Who knows, she might not die. She might live longer yet. But I still think she deserves to die in a good way already, and go wherever the dead go.

Goodbye Blue Sky. That's a Pink Floyd song.

Good song.
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