If I had something to say

[mrissa]

The nightmares could stop any time now. That'd be okay. Memo to subconscious: I know that we've lost my grandpa. Thank you, subconscious. Yes. I am aware. This is like all of electromagnetism disappeared on me one Monday afternoon. It is not something I can forget. I know that I am worried sick about several other people close to me, sometimes even for good, solid reasons. What I do not need, o subconscious, is a set of constant and vivid reminders of these things popping up in nightmare form. Honestly.

In case you were thinking maybe this would be a good year to pull an April Fool's prank on me: it wouldn't. I'm not sure there is a good year for that. But this is not it.

Hmm. Not a happy fun-fun entry so far. I will tell a Grandpa story. A Grandpa-and-Grandma story, but also a My Grandpa The Scandosotan Male story. One of you remembered part of it as a favorite, so I will tell the whole thing.

So Grandma was at her circle (women's group) at church, and they were talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, I think. And the conversation circled around to one of Grandma and Mom's friends in the circle who had a nephew she loved very much. Her nephew was gay. He had killed himself. And this friend felt that maybe if her nephew's church (not the church where the circle was meeting--a church in a different state and possibly a different denomination, I don't know) had been more welcoming of him, warmer towards him, it could have been a factor in changing that outcome, in maybe making him feel more like staying in the world was a good idea. She wanted to bring it up to get people to think about how their church could be different.

Well, Grandma took this to heart. It bothered her. If I know my grandma, she was probably imagining a particular one of my gay friends reaching out to a church and being rebuffed, and that was a very disturbing thing for her. So Grandpa came to pick her up, and she got in the car and sat there thinking about it. Then without giving him background, she turned to my grandpa: "Dick, if a gay person came and sat next to you in church, what would you say?" "...'Good morning'?" ventured my grandpa. "No, but I mean, would you speak to them?" "Yah, sure," said Grandpa, baffled, "if I had something to say."

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Hee.

That's awesome, for so many reasons.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I so love that! In so many ways.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Anxiety nightmares suck.

That is all.

[ckd]

That's a wonderful story. Thank you for making it part of my morning.

[jenett]

That is an absolutely fabulous story!

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing all of these stories for the first time, and they're so wonderful -- both absolutely real, like overheard conversations, and also so well-delivered by the "actors" and "narrator" that they could have been scripted!

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Your stories make me smile. That's a good thing.

The dreams will stop when your brain stops trying to understand something it can't comprehend. You're not there yet, but you will be.

And the dreams will change to happy things, good times you had with your Grandpa and others. It sucks, it's not at all fun, but it's part of the process. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. I'd fix it for you if I could.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Yay for your Grandma and Grandpa.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

That's a great story.

I'm sorry about the nightmares. Sometimes writing them down can help clear them out of the queue, in my experience. Sometimes revisiting them that way is too painful to be worth trying, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yah. I do that. So I've been having varied nightmares, which is at least something.

[redbird]

That is a great story, about both your grandparents.

Hang in there.

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

That was a wonderful story.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

That's such a Scandasotan thing for him to say. It's perfect.

Sorry about the nightmares. I hate nightmares. It's like the subconscious can't give you a break.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's trying, poor subconscious. In one of them it let me take shelter in a bookstore. Subconscious is clear on how it works to be a mrissa by now, apparently.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

That's a great story. And I wish the nightmares would take a hike. It's rotten to not get enough good, quiet sleep.

[pameladean]

Your Grandpa was naturally like Ms. Manners at her best. ("What should I say if I'm introduced to a gay couple?" "How do you do? How do you do?")

You could have one of my recent anxiety dreams, in which somebody had invited my tea group and, for some reason, also Gene Wolfe, Samuel Delany, Theodore Sturgeon (looking just as he did when he was a GoH at Minicon in the late 1970's), and Neil Gaiman to my house for tea without telling me. They were having a grand time. It had all the anxiety dream aspects of being totally unable to do ordinary things that needed to be done in a hurry, like actually putting water in the kettle and rounding up the ingredients for a batch of gingerbread, but everybody was laughing and talking and committing literary criticism and telling anecdotes of the publishing industry with no refreshment at all (I couldn't even collect the water glasses and fill them up), so as anxiety dreams go it was pretty benign.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a superior grade of anxiety dream.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the whole story.

[wordswoman.livejournal.com]

Oh, the dreams. Oh sweetie, I know. I've had so many dreams since my dad died in September--some outright nightmares, some where he's still alive and I wake up crying because the dream made me forget he was gone.

My subconscious is one mean little bitch, is all I can figure.

I loved your Grandpa story.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Today was the first day I didn't have to remember all over again when I woke up. Not necessarily because of dreams, because those were still bad.

[guipago.livejournal.com]

Your grandpa sounds like a wonderful person. And I'm sorry about the nightmares :( *hugs*

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

What a great story!!

Thinking about you.

[keilexandra]

Oh, M'ris. Hugs. The story made me smile, and I'm still smiling. So thank you for brightening my day.