More misc.

We spent Tuesday up in Grand Rapids at the funeral for Jayne's uncle Bill Atwood. He was 78.

Funerals are never easy -- we have a lot more ahead of us, I'm sorry to say -- but as I've gotten older, I've grown to accept them and see their merit. I used to wonder about them, why people would emotionally tear themselves apart over an inevitability. It's like lamenting the snow in winter. It's going to happen, so accept it, I'd say.

Well, I still say accept it, but now I see some positives of funerals. It's just a time to hug people you haven't hugged, or been afraid to hold, a time to cry when you otherwise were frightened to, and a chance to say some nice things you've been hesitant to say before. It' still a shame we celebrate lives after people die instead of when they're alive and might appreciate the nice things we say about them. Imagine saying how much you respect someone when they're lucid and sitting across the table from you as an equal?

We also took our daughters to the funeral. I wasn't happy about taking them out of school, but a funeral is a necessary educational experience for them. They walked up to the open casket and asked some tough questions ("When will you die, dad?"), and, of course, still acted as elementary-age children ("I'm bored and this room is cold. Can I go to the bathroom? Can we go to McDonald's for lunch?").

In other business

-- I've taken today and Thursday off from work, though not related to the funeral. I just have some vacation days I'll lose by the end of the year if I don't use them. November and December are busy in the newspaper world, with elections and holidays and co-workers' vacations.

-- Jayne has been ill the last few days, but is feeling a bit better.

-- After I dropped off Elspeth at dance yesterday, I had an hour to wait to pick her up, so I went to Oval Beach in Saugatuck to watch the storms roll in. I find an inner peace near water and continue to be awed by the strength of the Great Lakes.

While I watched the clouds pregnant with heavy rain and winds drive the waves over the beach, and the occasional break in the clouds so sunbeams could slice through the gray, I popped "Days of Future Passed" in the portable CD player. What's a great album! Boy, 1967 was a good year for theme albums ("Sgt. Pepper's" came out that year as well). If the Moody Blues could have put a video together for that masterpiece, it could have been the time I spent at the beach with all its contradictions, juxtapositions and sea gulls. I like sea gulls.

Jayne and I had recently been discussing the most famous song from that album, "Nights in White Satin." She thought it was a hopeful song. I still see it as a sad song about a lonely man who cries for love, but has none. A fitting end to an album about lost childhood and people gently swaying to the fairyland of love.

Thought: Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight. Red is gray and yellow white. Only we decide which is right, and which is an illusion.