KD^3C^3 - 20251005 Clouds above us gather and a thunderstorm is nigh
Grief is a funny thing. It never hits you quite the way you expect. Or at leas that’s been my experience. We’re just about a year out from the Hurricane. Things are normal. Except that they aren’t normal. They weren’t normal then and they’re not normal now. I wrote a disaster log during the 19 days that we were without power after the storm. I shared some of it back then, but I haven’t really revisited it since then.
But that means I can open the document up and see that on October 1 2025, exactly one year ago from when I’m writing this, Amy took Felicity, our cat, in the truck down the one dirt road that could get out of the neighborhood since the bridge had washed away. Amy and her dad took Felicity to see if they could find a vet willing to look at her. They weren’t successful. Nobody was open. So I said goodby to my cat without know if I’d see her again.
It was still a few weeks until she would actually pass away. Now it’s been almost a year, but I still sometimes expect to catch her in the corner of my eye, or accidentally kick her in the dark walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s not all the time, but it is some of the time.
A year ago we were trying to calculate how much gas we had in the tank to run the generator, so we could figure out how long it would run.
A year ago friends were texting (or trying to text) from unbelievable far away trying to see if they could help.
Amy and I didn’t want to be in town for the anniversary. Lots of places were doing memorials, or remembrances, and we weren’t really interested in that We memorialize in our own way, and doing it publicly was not in the cards. We left town, to the other side of the mountains and to a little cabin in the woods. We sat in a hot tub and watched bad movies on Tubi and visited kitschy tourist attractions like Paula Deen’s Lumberjack Feud Supper Show.
On Friday, one year to the day after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we learned a friend of ours died a few days after a sudden medical event. The details aren’t important, or mine to share. Eating a meatball sandwich moments after learning a friend died feels a little weird, but the food was already on the table. I lost a friend who I had spoken to almost every week for the past 5 years, and I ate a meatball sandwich in response.
Sometimes grief feels like nothing. Sometimes it’s the silliest things that set you off. I missed Pizzamass last year, the silly event where Hank and John Green, the VlogBrothers, make a video back and forth every day for 2 weeks and sell silly perch and give all the proceeds to charity. It’s a little thing that makes me smile. It brings me joy. I knew I missed it last year, but it wasn’t until; this year, when I started watching Pizzamass 2025 that the grief of missing it hit me. I sat on the couch and I cried watching youtube videos. I cried for Pizzamass 2024 and my cat and the town I’ve come to call home and my friend. But grief is a funny thing sometimes.
A year and 2 weeks ago, we were talking to a builder and probably 2 weeks from signing a contract to build our home. Now, one year and one hurricane later, we’re talking to a different builder about building our home. Grief happens not just because the past is gone, but because so many imagined futures have been cut off. “things will be different,” Grief says “and you had no say in the matter.”
I don’t really have a way to end this. I’m doing fine, thanks for asking. What’s the point of having a Secret Public journal if you can’t let loose some times? Maybe next week I’ll talk about video games.
But that means I can open the document up and see that on October 1 2025, exactly one year ago from when I’m writing this, Amy took Felicity, our cat, in the truck down the one dirt road that could get out of the neighborhood since the bridge had washed away. Amy and her dad took Felicity to see if they could find a vet willing to look at her. They weren’t successful. Nobody was open. So I said goodby to my cat without know if I’d see her again.
It was still a few weeks until she would actually pass away. Now it’s been almost a year, but I still sometimes expect to catch her in the corner of my eye, or accidentally kick her in the dark walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s not all the time, but it is some of the time.
A year ago we were trying to calculate how much gas we had in the tank to run the generator, so we could figure out how long it would run.
A year ago friends were texting (or trying to text) from unbelievable far away trying to see if they could help.
Amy and I didn’t want to be in town for the anniversary. Lots of places were doing memorials, or remembrances, and we weren’t really interested in that We memorialize in our own way, and doing it publicly was not in the cards. We left town, to the other side of the mountains and to a little cabin in the woods. We sat in a hot tub and watched bad movies on Tubi and visited kitschy tourist attractions like Paula Deen’s Lumberjack Feud Supper Show.
On Friday, one year to the day after Hurricane Helene made landfall, we learned a friend of ours died a few days after a sudden medical event. The details aren’t important, or mine to share. Eating a meatball sandwich moments after learning a friend died feels a little weird, but the food was already on the table. I lost a friend who I had spoken to almost every week for the past 5 years, and I ate a meatball sandwich in response.
Sometimes grief feels like nothing. Sometimes it’s the silliest things that set you off. I missed Pizzamass last year, the silly event where Hank and John Green, the VlogBrothers, make a video back and forth every day for 2 weeks and sell silly perch and give all the proceeds to charity. It’s a little thing that makes me smile. It brings me joy. I knew I missed it last year, but it wasn’t until; this year, when I started watching Pizzamass 2025 that the grief of missing it hit me. I sat on the couch and I cried watching youtube videos. I cried for Pizzamass 2024 and my cat and the town I’ve come to call home and my friend. But grief is a funny thing sometimes.
A year and 2 weeks ago, we were talking to a builder and probably 2 weeks from signing a contract to build our home. Now, one year and one hurricane later, we’re talking to a different builder about building our home. Grief happens not just because the past is gone, but because so many imagined futures have been cut off. “things will be different,” Grief says “and you had no say in the matter.”
I don’t really have a way to end this. I’m doing fine, thanks for asking. What’s the point of having a Secret Public journal if you can’t let loose some times? Maybe next week I’ll talk about video games.