save the date

we have 365+ delineated opportunities each year to make a day worth remembering... a day worth marking in our calendars for future reference. a good percentage of the days of the year do not fall into this category. sure, minor memorable events happen on them, but it's not like I'll take a sharpie to my wall calendar about them or write them up in a journal. most days are just days: they may be important to somebody somewhere, but without the marker of a birthday, anniversary, or other holiday, they are just not that important.

until yesterday morning, the sixth of february was just that: another day. sure, it was stout's birthday. and I love him as I should love an older brother. so I guess it wasn't just "another day;" it was more like it was another one of my friend's lovely birthdays, which is a positive association. as of 6:46a, however, that positive association was mildly usurped by this: the slightly less expected passing of my favorite grandparent, my dad's dad, my paw paw.

I say that the whole thing was "slightly less expected" to indicate that I expected my mom's mom to go first, since she was, as mentioned in the previous blog, in and out of the hospital last month. but grandma irene is, as of last notice, okay. not well, not getting any better, but okay.

it's just funny to think: I'd been through twenty-seven february 6th's before. very few of them probably meant anything beyond the due-date of an assignment, a shift I might have worked, a sorority event attended, or another day crossed off on the way to some other important date. and for many people, yesterday remained just another day.

much like the inherent inability of people to witness the amazing potential of the people in front of them, there is also the inability to see the hidden circumstances behind others' attitudes at any particular time. ninety percent of the people with whom I interacted yesterday had absolutely no idea, and probably no interest in the fact, that I'd just lost one of the people I admired most in my life. the ins-and-outs of their own markers for the day, whether of major or minor life-importance, weighed more heavily in their mind and in their adjustment to interactions than my markers ever could or would. but just being aware of the fact that you have no idea what has happened to someone in the last 24 hours, let alone across the span of their life, makes you a much more understanding person in my opinion. or, at the very least, more open to the possibility that people are floating through life much as you are: trying to make it day-to-day, without promise of anything more concrete than just trying to survive.