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  • From: Akka Homestead <akkabhomestead AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Homestead List <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Grief is the impetus..the work is the penance
  • Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:44:37 -0700 (PDT)

I've always wanted to make a memorial garden.  I think I have even mentioned
it here before.  Yesterday, I found out that one of my aunts died last year. 
She lived over in SC, and she was the last of her family, so there was no one
to call me last year.  A few weeks before she passed, a neighbor who had
known me as a kid did call. Actually, I had called the neighbor a few months
before that trying to find my aunt.  Anyway, the neighbor called last May and
told me that Jo was not doing well, that she had fallen due to a stroke and
was hospitalized.  The neighbor wanted me to come to Greenville, but I was
working at the time and I couldn't leave. Jo died shortly after that.  I am
embarrassed that I had not  really checked on her for over a year, especially
considering that I knew she was sick and that she meant the world to me in
years past.  Jo had been my substitute mother-I lived with her when my
adoptive parents divorced. She potty trained
me. She taught me hot from cold.  She taught me about gardening and softball
and all kinds of stuff.  She was the one who nursed me through the mumps and
stayed with me when I almost died from the Hong Kong flu.  I visited her
every summer, and she never forgot a birthday.  In the mid 90's, she came to
live with me and kept my kids one summer while I worked.  She was the
original tomboy-a sports addict.  She loved the Atlanta Braves.   I always
described her personality as similar to Bea Arthur's Maude.  Anyway, aside
from the fact that I couldn't get away, I did not want to go.   Ten years
ago, Jo and I had a falling out...it was dumb...I was supposed to go to
Greenville and didn't..we moved up here that weekend...but anyway, she quit
talking to me, would not answer my calls, etc. I finally got persistent last
year, and called Lois, her neighbor.  Lois told me that Jo had developed
Alzheimers and might not remember me.  She collected Jo and
I spoke to her on the phone.  She was childlike, loving, not remembering
that she was mad at me.  It just about killed me to hear her.  I wanted her
to be mad at me, to yell at me for not calling, but she just said "you're my
B, how could I ever be mad at you?  She did remember me, but she remembered
me from a time about 20 years ago when the kids were small.  After that
conversation, I made the horrible decision that I could not see her, that I
wanted to remember her as she had been.  That was in late March.  Lois called
me in May to tell me about Jo's stroke and fall, and asked me to come.  I
just couldn't.  I couldn't go.  I suppose Lois did not call when she died
because I did not go.  Of course, Lois did not owe me anything. 
Maybe I did not want to know about Jo.  I searched the obituaries a few times
last summer, but never saw anything online.  My boss lived in Greenville, so
I had him check a certain nursing home because Lois had told me that Jo was
going to become a ward of the state.  No luck.  By this time last year, I had
gone on, putting it out of my mind...until now.  Tuesday, I checked the SSDI
and there she was.  I know she is in a better place-she had lost her children
and her husband and had been very bitter about it, often saying that she
wanted to die.  But still, I feel like pond scum.  My Jo Jo died alone and
she did not have to...I should have been there. She was 78. I think that one
of the reasons my life sucks so much is that I generate so much bad karma
because I make bad decisions like this thing with going to Greenville to
visit Jo before she died.
Okay, so now, I have to do SOMETHING as a peace offering to JoJo.  Jo was a
huge Clemson Fan.  Her house was orange and had tiger paws painted on the
driveway.  Everything was Clemson and she even worked for years at the
Clemson store. 
Finally, we get to my idea to memorialize those I loved...I am going to paint
bowling balls and use them as yard ornaments.  JoJo's will be orange with a
Tiger paw on it, just like her actual ball was.  She always had a huge
prickly pear cactus in her backyard, so I will plant a prickly pear in my
garden and set the Clemson ball next to it.  Jo was a prickly sort in real
life, and I think she would love the whole idea.
For my uncle, Jo's husband, white.  He was a golf addict.
For my birthfather, the ball will be blue with white stripes to simulate the
Finnish flag.
For DH's grandmother, whom I loved dearly, the ball with be blue with yellow
stripes...she was Swedish.
For my adoptive paternal grandfather, a plain red ball...cherry red..like
every car he owned
For my birthmother, green with a white rose.
For my Cousin, cola brown with the word Pepsi on it.
For my Finnish grandfather, bluegreen with a fish on it.
For my adoptive father, gray, with a clock face.
For my adoptive grandmother, lavendar...
You get the idea.

Anyway, I've been kind of a wreck lately.  Please send good vibes, and if
anyone has any additional helpful hints or ideas on this project, let me
know.  I've requested balls on Freecycle...one offer so far. 

Akka B




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National Security Memoradum 200, Chapter 5: Implications of Population
Pressures For National Security, "Development of a worldwide political and
popular commitment to population stablization is fundamental to any
effective strategy . . . they clearly see the negative impact of
unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this
question through governmental action . . .".

Tetunus vaccines contained B-hCG. "the tetanus vaccination campaign only
targeted women of child-bearing or pre-child-bearing years" in developing
nations. There was a court order to stop the vaccine in the Phillipines.
The Phillipine Supreme Court discovered that over 3 million women were given
the vaccine. 35% of Native American women were given the vaccine. It was
also used in four other developing countries.

Medical facilites aren't denying care, they are loosing funding if they
provide birth control or advice on birth control. These funds were
withdrawn and haven't been returned. These clinics have been effectively
shut down.

Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: <DSanner106 AT aol.com>


> Do you have anything to back this stuff up?? I can't imagine a tetnus
> vaccine given once every 10 years would be an effective birth control
> method, or
> that you could add something like that to such a small vaccination (in
> CC's) and
> still get it in one shot??? I also don't know of any medical facilities
> refusing medical care to people on birth control. Even catholic funded
> facilities don't do this.




  • [Homestead] Grief is the impetus..the work is the penance, Akka Homestead, 09/11/2008

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