FFF...or not

I meant to give you flowers. I have taken pictures of flowers for you but I haven't downloaded them yet. I've been writing something that I really don't want to write. It's good for me, I should write it and I will but I don't want to so I'm having to practice extreme self care to keep myself together. Processing pictures didn't make it onto the agenda today. Sorry.

My aunt has been turning old family slides into digital and printed pictures for us. She sent me a batch the other day and it's been such a treat. She's labeled the batch "Pre-1960" but this particular one is from 1969. That's me in the front of the family cradle, that's how I can tell. My cousin Tim and I were the first grandkids on that side of my family so this picture was widely circulated. Widely circulated. It's everywhere, seriously. I'll be surprised if it doesn't show up in every batch of photos she is kind enough to process. Not her fault, just a fact of the archives of the family.

After my grandfather died I went to the church with my aunts and uncles to talk to the minister about the service. We sat around a conference table in the middle of the church office which is a room that could easily double for an interrogation room or a particularly sterile classroom. As we introduced ourselves my uncle told the minister that I was the deceased's granddaughter, "the apple of his eye," he said. My aunts shushed him forcibly since I was struggling not to completely splinter in front of everybody. I missed my grandfather so acutely in that moment. I felt so pleased that someone thought I was special but also amazed that they could all be so wrong. No one feels like a good person in those few days after someone dies, I don't think. At least I didn't.

So no flowers today but apples. For what they're worth.