That’s My Year

Thursday, 30 December 2010

As mentioned previously, my wife’s uncle died earlier this week. Today was the visitation. We asked Owen if he wanted to go to the visitation and the funeral, and he didn’t seem terribly thrilled with the visitation, so we dropped him off with some of our friends for the evening.

The visitation, though it was only a for a few hours in the evening, took up our whole day. We arrived at the mall before noon this morning and ran to a couple of stores so Jennifer could find a blouse. We were unsuccessful, and at 12:30 we went into my sister’s salon at the mall so that she could do whatever it is she needed to do to Jennifer and Owen’s hair. Then, we went back out into the mall to find clothes – both for Jennifer and for Isla.

By the time we got home, we had only a little bit of time to eat, get dressed in our fancy clothes, and pile back into the car to take Owen – through rush hour – to our friends’ home. Then we drove over to the funeral home.

I should mention that now, as of today, all of Jennifer’s relatives have now seen Isla, including my wife’s sister Kara who has shunned the entire family for about a year now. She positively beamed with excitement at the chance to meet Isla. In fact, after saying hi and quickly asking how I was (or did she even say that? I don’t recall), she asked to hold Isla and, suddenly, she really seemed to care about Isla. The last time I saw Kara was early September of 2009 – before Jennifer was even pregnant – and on that day she simply saw us at the Apple Computer store and turned around and walked out. In the 15+ months since then, Kara hasn’t so much as sent an email inquiring or congratulating Jennifer or me about the pregnancy or birth.

We weren’t sure if Kara was even going to be there tonight, or if she would ignore us like a good little Witness. Turns out, not only was she there, but she acted like a decent human being. As Jennifer pointed out later, since Kara was ‘allowed’ to be with her ex-JW relatives (due to a family crisis), she probably figured she would let herself enjoy it. After all, she really does want to be with her siblings and parents, but the religion is fucking with her brain. So when she started asking Jennifer all sorts of questions, such as how we picked out Isla’s name and how Owen is doing Kindergarten, it might seem strange that she suddenly cared about us. But, indeed, she’s cared about us all along, she’s just been forbidden from following her conscience.

Friday, 31 December 2010

Ah…so here we are at the last day of the year. How smart of me was it to not pick a leap year to write about?

You might think, “Hey, James, don’t you think it was stupid to write about a year in which you’d be going to college and having another baby?”

Well, maybe. But I actually thought writing on this blog would give me a break from doing my college work and, though I suspected it would be tough to maintain this blog during the first few days following Isla’s birth, I thought that the weeks I took off of work for paternity leave would give me ample time to write on this blog (it did).

So, here’s my last day…

We woke up early, breakfasted, showered, and dressed in our fancy clothes. We drove back to the same funeral home in Roseville (with Owen accompanying us this time) in time for the funeral. Following the service, we stayed for a while with Jennifer’s relatives, then ventured one block away to some sort of event center where we dined on very tasty food (most of which had been kindly donated) with the family and friends of the deceased.

We left around 2:00 and, on our way home, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things for this evening. We got home at around 3:00, changed out of our fancy clothes, rested briefly, and then got ready and left for our friends’ house for a New Year’s Eve party. We got there around 5:00, ate dinner, drank champagne, and played a round of Outburst and Scattergories. A cranky baby who wouldn’t go to sleep necessitated that we leave around 9:00. Back at home, Jennifer nursed Isla to sleep while Owen and I read books together. Owen and I went to bed at about 11:15, and Jennifer joined us shortly thereafter.

And that’s my year.