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As some of you know 2023 has been a mentally and emotionally difficult year for me. It has easily been the most painful year I've ever navigated during my half-century (technically 52 years) of being sentient on this tiny yet majestic rock hurtling through space.
Having my mom die - right in front of me - in a shockingly disturbing and traumatic way in February haunted me for months. It affected me deeply and still visits me often. I'm not exaggerating when I say I still think of her every day. But sometimes it's the painful memories of the final event(s), which is really a twisting nightmare I wish I could erase somehow and only access when I felt like it was absolutely necessary for historical/data purposes. Instead I seem to relive those moments like flashing lights hitting me out of the deepest darkness completely at random. At least I feel like I have the raw horror of what happened more under control and the flashes are less continuous. I long for the day the trauma dissipates if it ever totally will. Maybe it's just a slowly softening weight I will always bear.
Then to lose my dad two months later was a gut wrenching slow-motion underwater body blow.
At least with him my older brother and I knew it was coming and we were able to mentally prepare for a couple months even though we were already in a fragile state. COVID was just one of 4 causes listed on his death certificate. It officially accelerated the overall process (and got him isolated in a part of a hospital in downtown Dallas I'd never seen before) but it wasn't what took him out. It was the lighting of the fuse. A very long fuse.
Due to what felt like unimaginable cruelty of the US/TX medical system, dad's death ultimately became a massive mental release, and relief, when he couldn't hang on any longer and his absolute suffering finally stopped. It shouldn't have to end like that across months for what everyone knows is the inevitable, reducing a human to what I can only describe as something I've not ever seen except in history books of concentration camps. I wouldn't let my own dog go down like that. To see a parent be forced through that physical and mental torture and indignity left me shaken, confused, feeling legally impotent and frankly angry at The System. I've told my own family if I'm ever in a similar situation I want to be "helped out" before being reduced to a fully aware yet helpless skeleton. Whatever it takes as long as it doesn't put them in legal jeopardy. And they agreed they'd try. They asked for the same courtesy in return. (I never let my kids see him like that, of course.)
I realize this is all heavy **** to be dropping on our shared getaway from all of life's difficulties and stress. I'm sincerely sorry about that.
I'm doing it because I wanted you ALL to know - every last one of you reading this and those that clicked the back button - that your being here helped pull me through. Reading about your projects or experiences in your own retro-computer lives was exactly the distraction I needed when I needed it most. And I'll forever be grateful - and honored - for your participation here, your enthusiasm, your obvious willingness to help, your kindness, your generosity in sharing your valuable time and your friendship.
I don't plan on doing posts like this again any time soon, if ever. But I really wanted to publicly thank you all and acknowledge you all for being exceptionally bad ass people.
May we all have a happy and healthy 2024.
-- Eric
