Back from BC

[randy_byers]

And there I, a fragile flake of soul-dust, flickered silently across the void, from the distant blue, into the expanse of the unknown.

-- Hodgson, The House on the Borderland

Well, Sharee's mom was obviously thrilled to see her younger daughter again. She cried when we got there yesterday. She and her partner, Jack, seemed pretty happy to see me, too. Sheilla told me I was the closest thing she had to a son-in-law at the moment. Hm. Well, I'm not sure how well I can hold up my end of the bargain, because both she and Jack asked me to come back as soon as possible but March is pretty much impossible for me. Maybe next weekend would work, but I need to gather some information first. No matter what, I can still give Sharee support, while she gives Jack a break in his role as primary care-giver. It takes a village to do any number of things, doesn't it? But I think I need to make it up there next weekend again if I can.

Sheilla is clearly a lot sicker than she was when I saw her a year ago, and she's in a fair amount of pain, although she of course has pain-killers. This Thursday she gets some tests that will indicate whether she's fit to have another course of chemo. What I hadn't understood until yesterday is that the cancer has spread to her bones. She has signed the paperwork that tells emergency personnel that she wants to die at home and does not want to be resuscitated, and it is posted around their condo. (I told the story about holyoutlaw's mother a couple of times in response to this, since he shared it with me recently.) Sheilla and Jack told us separately, and then together, that they have a plan to spread some of her ashes in the bay at Ladysmith, using a dragonboat rowed by breast cancer survivors. There will be rose petals on top of the ashes, and the boat will spread the rose petals in a circle. Today she was talking to the president of the local dragonboat association about whether it would be possible to have the same ceremony in Melbourne, so that her other daughter, Heather, could see it. Some of her ashes will also be buried with her mother in a cemetery in Edmonton.

I had a long talk with Jack last night about his family too. The sister who died of polio at age 21, the semi-estranged daughter who is making gestures of rapprochement at age 60, the bright, athletic grandson he is clearly so proud of, working for the government in Ottawa. Sharee told me stories off and on about her friend Dave, who died of lung cancer a couple of years ago. I met him on one of my trips to visit her in Australia, and I have a book he gave me. In the end, Sharee said, he could only eat chocolate, and his aged mother (whom I'd also met) teased him, "Dave, you'll rot your teeth."

I don't know nothin' about nothin'. Sheilla joked with me about how when she moved to Australia at age 22, she thought she knew everything.

"The older we get, the less we know," I said.

"There's truth to that," she said.

Maybe some day I'll really let go of trying to understand it all. Meanwhile, there's work to be done, eh? Meanwhile, there's the reminder that the work will someday come to an end. No matter what, there never seems to be enough time.

It seemed to me, waiting there, that eternities came and went, stealthily; and still I watched. --Hodgson

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, soulful, sad, full or reminders to live and die by.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Exactly. What Ron said.

It's all so true, so real. I wish that none of you had to go through it. Not Sheilla, not Jack, not Sharee, not you. But I'm glad you all have each other, for the world's curious and sometimes perverse values of "have."

"Meanwhile, there's work to be done, eh?" Yes, that and more.

Sympathy.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I wish that none of you had to go through it. Not Sheilla, not Jack, not Sharee, not you. But I'm glad you all have each other

And what you said, Geri, thank you.

I see now that my "or" should of course have been "of":

Beautiful, soulful, sad, full of reminders to live and die by.

Bless.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ron. I suppose this kind of thing always feels like a wake up call.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Geri. By the way, Sharee showed me some great pictures of Kelly from Kiwiburn, and I'll try to get one from her to either post here or send to you. They all looked quite fabulous.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Eric. The one thing of Hodgson's I'd read before was the short story "The Voice in the Night," which was made into a very good (and somewhat psychedelic) Japanese horror film called MATANGO, aka ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE. I think I'll read THE NIGHT LAND next, and then maybe more of the short stories, although Mike Ashley's intro to THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND says that THE GHOST PIRATES is also good. Hard to go wrong with ghost pirates, right?

I find mortality hard to contemplate too, but I don't want to be afraid when it comes time to die. Since that time can come at any moment, it's hard not to feel that I'm not prepared, that I haven't done enough. But then again I'm not sure what one can do to prepare. A few years ago I read Chuang Tze, and I really like the attitude toward death there, that it's just a natural part of living. Wish I could achieve that level of detachment. Maybe I still can. (Uh-oh, now I have "Dust in the Wind" playing in my head!)

Does your mom still remember the people in the old pictures?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It must be very difficult to see your mother in that condition. I know my own mom dreads the thought of anything like that happening to her.

I don't believe that you have to be religious to deal with your mortality, although that's certainly one of the main things religions try to help with. But as you say, there's nothing inherently tragic about death. On the other hand, your use of the phrase "will to live" makes me think that there may be a biological basis to the resistance to dying. Maybe a fear of death is a healthy thing, in the end.

completely off topic, but wotthehell...

[profgeek.livejournal.com]

Randy, since I can't afford to attend Corflu Zed, what's the supporting rate and address to fire off a check to? Thanks! If you desire, e-mail me the info: j_purcell54@yahoo.com

Re: completely off topic, but wotthehell...

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Hi, John. Supporting memberships are $20, payable to Denys Howard at 1013 N 36th St, Seattle WA 98103. Wish you were coming to the convention instead!

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I think I was talking about House On The Borderland with Tobes last time I saw him. Though drink was involved so I can't be too sure.
I rather like the idea of huge cosmic time-travel weirdness going on while you're sitting in a nice comfy leather armchair watching it all happen. Could probably do without the pig-things though.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, the pig-things seemed pretty unpleasant. A very strange detail, too. I'm hoping to write a review in the next few days. As I was reading it I kept thinking, "Hello, HP Lovecraft!"

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's definitely the most Lovecraftian thing I've read that pre-dates him. And here's HPL writing about Hodgson:

"Of rather uneven stylistic quality, but vast occasional power in its suggestion of lurking worlds and beings behind the ordinary surface of life, is the work of William Hope Hodgson, known today far less than it deserves to be. Despite a tendency toward conventionally sentimental conceptions of the universe, and of man's relation to it and to his fellows, Mr. Hodgson is perhaps second only to Algernon Blackwood in his serious treatment of unreality. Few can equal him in adumbrating the nearness of nameless forces and monstrous besieging entities through casual hints and insignificant details, or in conveying feelings of the spectral and the abnormal in connection with regions or buildings.
...
The House on the Borderland (1908) -- perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson's works -- tells of a lonely and evilly regarded house in Ireland which forms a focus for hideous otherworld forces and sustains a siege by blasphemous hybrid anomalies from a hidden abyss below. The wanderings of the Narrator's spirit through limitless light-years of cosmic space and Kalpas of eternity, and its witnessing of the solar system's final destruction, constitute something almost unique in standard literature. And everywhere there is manifest the author's power to suggest vague, ambushed horrors in natural scenery. But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality this book would be a classic of the first water."

From this

And, in a change of tone, Fishmen, Shadow Over Innsmouth: The Musical

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually looked that up on Tuesday, because I knew Lovecraft had commented on Hodgson. I also liked Jessica Amanda Salmonson's comment on a local list (when I asked her what she thought of Hodgson) that he "can make a calm sea sound menacing."

"Conventional sentimentality" didn't seem prevalent to me in The House on the Borderland, although there are a couple of brief passages describing an amorphous beloved (and it's implied that the loss of her drove the narrator into solitude) and I suppose there's some hint of cosmic benevolence vaguely encountered somewhere along the line, but the feeling of sickly dread always returns. The moment where he touches his dog and the dog turns to dust is amazing. (Uh-oh, there goes "Dust in the Wind" again!)

[elenorrigby.livejournal.com]

Hey Ran,
I'm so glad you were there for Sharee, she tells me your going back on the weekend? you're so awesome! I'll be in Ladysmith to see nana on the second week of March, I had to borrow money from my good, no Great! friend Darin for the plane ticket as my dad won't help me. This whole thing just leaves me to resent him all the more, he still doesn't forgive her for driving my mother and me to the airport the day we left for Australia. Unbelievable. That and because he pays my wages at work he won't give me proper leave so the more I'm away the more money I don't make [seriously no sick leave-nothing!] which will leave my visit so short with everyone. Sorry R! lol, you prob didn't want to know all that, lol, I guess I just needed to rant to someone about how frustrating it all is!!!

Have a nice, safe visit though ok?
Liz.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Hey, Liz. Well, I'm glad you're going to be able to make it down to Ladysmith despite all the obstacles. Hadn't heard about your dad's sore feelings toward your grandmother. Isn't that just like family? Well, I'm sorry that's the way it is.

Meanwhile, we've gotten a bit of snow around here, and I've heard there's more of it up north. Could make traveling tomorrow ... interesting! (I'm sure a frost-bitten Edmontonian wouldn't think this was anything.)

[farmgirl1146.livejournal.com]

Sheilla and Jack are making the right decision because it is a decision and not an act of desperation. What a cruel end to a life.

I only know you, and I echo what others have written. Losing a friend to cancer is extremely hard. Please give Sharee my love, even though I have not seen her in almost 30 years.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Sheilla seems to be handling it very well, all things considered. She's asking all her loved ones and friends to come visit while they still have a chance, and she's letting them know that there may not be much time. I will certainly pass along your message to Sharee.