Official Mourning Declared Tomorrow in Brazil’s 4th Largest State
Governor Rui Costa declared official mourning for the 18th of August to honour my grandfather’s death which happened this morning. Mayor ACM also released a statement.
Not entirely sure how I feel or what to say. Here’s an amusing article in Life Magazine from when he developed the first injectable contraceptive for long-term use
He dedicated his life to helping people. Particularly by introducing free family planning clinics to serve the poor in the North-East of Brazil. We didn’t get along, but I managed to find an amusing picture in Itapoan from before we’d alienated each other beyond repair. The girl is my aunt Charlotte and I’m the baby.
My Mazamet 
My sincere condolences.
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Much appreciated!
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The features of a character which enable one to make difference in the lives of others on the major scale can be those which badly affect who live in close proximity.
I had a colleague who was rightly acclaimed for his work for human rights – but two successive wives committed suicide.
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I think you’re absolutely right. And some people, like the wives you mention (or me), just don’t have the skills to cope with those characters.
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Ted Hughes is an enormous example; though it is unlikely he did much for humanity, his contributions to Literature are indelible, and sadly, so was the trail of misery he left along those he held intimately.
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❤️Sending you strength❤️
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Thank you!
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Sending you a hug in case you need one.
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I’ll take it 🙂 It’s a very strange time for me, sort of the end of an era.
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-HUG-
Love them or hate them, significant family members make us who we are. Doesn’t matter if we emulate them, do the exact opposite, or cut them from our lives. They’re a…framework. When they die, that framework is taken away, and suddenly we’re free, but will we fly or will we go into free fall?
I think it’s your time to fly free Pinky.
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I couldn’t have expressed it in a better way. That’s exactly it, they’re the framework from which we emerge. We absorb their fears, we wonder about their dreams and expectations. Because of my unusual trajectory, this feels strange on every possible level — and with a heavy dose of Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits.
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I read somewhere that we never really grow up until after our parents die. I think that happened to me after Mum died. Dad had mild dementia so I became the parent while he was still alive, yet even so it felt odd to be completely on my own after he died. Not necessarily bad, just…odd.
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I never really felt connected to anyone in my family, except in a somewhat contrived way. So in that sense I had to grow up very early, feeling alone in the world, responsible for myself.
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Being thrust out into the world so young can be disastrous or enabling. I think it made you stronger in many ways. Finding Mike and creating a world for yourselves would have been critical as well. I think you’re okay. 🙂
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My condolences. He sure seemed to be a person who greatly benefited humanity. Not many of us can say that.
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Thank you. Yes, I think he did great things for many people – and hopefully now my memory can let go of the not so great things.
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Algumas dores são intraduzíveis, e não só da linguagem, mas da própria cognição. Eu estou familiarizado com as ruturas desta natureza. Demasiado, até.
Os meus pêsames.
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Agradeço a sua empatia 🙂
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Very sorry for your loss. Sounds like you loved him in spite of your relationship.
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Thank you. I’m not sure what the right word for what I feel is. Maybe you’re right and it’s love but wrapped in all sorts of other things. Less positive things.
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Sorry for your loss. And extra love and compassion for those like you who carry on their shoulders the task of ending generations of damage and unconscious behaviour. It’s no easy job x
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Thank you! I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, how those damaging practices are carried from one generation to the next with people barely noticing what’s happening. And where we are 🙂
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Yes and the behaviour was always just considered ‘normal’ before now. I think it’s a heroic task, to be the ones that take responsibility for becoming conscious. I think we aren’t alone either, it’s happening all over and it gives me hope for humanity.
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Absolutely. I suppose often consciousness wasn’t even an option in the past. People just busily tried to survive within the parameters that circumstances allowed.
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Let yourself feel what you feel. My father died, and one feeling I had was relief. Don’t follow the stories about what people feel in these situations, much less what we ought to feel.
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I feel a little bit of everything. Relief from my anger is one. Another is relief from the dangerous impulse to somehow correct the “historical injustice” I endured. I think not having that option is good for me. It stops me dwelling in dark places.
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My sincere condolences.
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Thank you 🙂
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Sorry this is so late…
(((hugs))) I have a sister who’s graduated from university with (I think) a Masters in Social Work. Something like that. She’s dedicated her life to working with at-risk teens and got flown to Prague a few years ago to give a speech. She’s also patronising as fuck to me… when she’s not outright pretending I didn’t speak while simultaneously changing what she’s saying to tell everyone I’m “wrong”. She actually told a trans friend of mine once that they were wrong about trans issues because she read about it in a book. My relationship with her is so messy and tangled and I can’t understand how she gets along so amazingly with all those other people. And, yeah, I get it. Family can be so very, fucking complicated.
I’m so sorry for your loss (even if you probably did want to yeet him off a bridge a few times).
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