Points to Ponder:

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

From all appearances, I have finally finished the project I mentioned earlier in the week. Essentially, when I was researching my archives for material to use in the magisterium project published on Ash Wednesday, I noticed some glaring problems with the template that was reflected across many past postings. Most dialogues had a colouring scheme that worked with the old templates but with the new one did not work at all and made in many cases differentiating who said what difficult.

To address this apparently longstanding problem, I undertook a restoration of colouring schemes for all the posts in the Dialogues main threads so that problem was fixed. I then applied the same scrutiny to the Expository Musings main threads and then waded through the Miscellaneous Threads/Brief Musings main threads. In the process, I found some threads with two main thread tags and fixed them so that each only had one main tag. I also reclassified some main tags to more accurately reflect the nature of the particular posting in question. Also in the process, I made sure any noticeable spelling or grammar glitches in the applicable threads were also fixed as well as making sure the threads were more uniformed going back to January 1, 2003. There was a process of finding a uniform approach to footnoting, source citing, etc, in postings that gradually took hold by some time around mid-2004.{1} However, prior to that, there was some variegation going back to the very beginning of this site's founding. I sought to iron a bunch of that out as well. I had to pick a hard delineation point for the sake of time and my sanity so I chose January 1, 2003 for that purpose.

Prior to January 1, 2003, there was a lot of postings numerically to an extent that was not replicated much past that time{2} that made tending to them in that fashion far more daunting than I cared to undertake. I did however where applicable in those postings still fix colour differentiations and glaring spelling or grammar glitches in those postings too but uniforming the whole site was impossible. But I did what I could to fix the majority of the site archives in the areas above and make sure all postings on the site had only one main tag delineation which was my intention all along but for reasons of complexity{3} was not always achieved previously.

Notes:

{1} It was so gradual that it was hard to find a definitive point where things were permanently what they eventually became. The same issue presented itself the last time I undertook an archival restoration project somewhat similar to (but by no means as extensive) as what I just undertook over the past week.

{2} It was a mixed bag in 2003 in this respect but at least moving in the direction of what I settled on eventually whereas 2002 was all over the map as this site gradually found its footing.

{3} See the threads HERE and HERE for an explanation of this process as I originally envisioned it being.