today has been the absolute BEST day for me in years!!!
everyone was freaking out about my costume... totally loving it! i got some EXCELLENT news at work (nope. sorry. can't talk about it on here) then prior to the halloween luncheon they nominated employees of the quarter - normally each manager only nominates one person - my boss nominated me and Fred, that was very cool. then the check for some freelance work i'd done came in... then i won the company costume party ($25 starbucks card... COFFEE!!!) a little later our desks we've been waiting for for months arrived and they look so keen!
then i got out of work at 6:30.
got home... took a shower... washed the goop off of my face... feeling fresh and relaxed and calm...
i sit down at my mac and on the keyboard is a folded piece of paper... i didn't have anything on my keyboard when i left for work this morning - and no one else has been in here...
i open it up and it's the piece of paper that i read from at my Poppy's funeral on February 13th, 1999... after i read it that day, i put it in a shoebox... the shoebox is in my closet... i haven't opened that box up since february of '99...
the paper contained the poem by Rudyard Kipling...
When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes
are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the
youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -
lie down for an aeon or two
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put
us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy;
they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with
brushes of comets' hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from -
Magdaline, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and
never be tired at all!
so that is the poem i read at his funeral... i could barely get through it then - and as i just typed it out again, i am sitting here with happy tears... no i haven't been drinking.
see, when Poppy died, i had to do a reading and i didn't know what to say - he was an artist so they wanted me to read something about his artistic side... kerry read something that showed his love of the ocean...
i couldn't think of anything... McLean's "Starry Starry Night" popped in my head - but that's about VanGogh and he went loopy - Poppy wasn't loopy.
The day before the funeral about 2 hours before the wake, i was going through an old scrapbook of his and a page was bookmarked, i opened to that page and that poem was on a typewritten sheet of paper... and i knew he wanted me to read that.
and i know right now he's pulling a Halloween stunt saying hello and trying to freak me out - much like he did when i was young and he would rig wires to ghosts and witches outside to scare the hell out of us when we would come trick or treating at his house...
poppy, i miss you and i love you.... Happy All Saints Eve
