Albert and the Luc/Sarah congomerate. Done. Expect it tonightish.
And as to your question... Albert himself reached out and inspired me on his own, but the point in my life that he attacked me made me especially fulnerable to melodrama. It goes something like this...
My maternal grandparents were my best friends, grandma especially. They lived seven blocks away through most of my childhood, then moved to Florida when I was thirteen and Vegas shortly after. Papa died (expectedly and peacefully) November 2005, but Grandma had been struggling with various forms of cancer and keeping herself alive primarily for his sake, so when he died she succumbed rather dramatically to it. The radiation mdeicine she was taking had torn up her digestive system, and along with brain cancer, well, she wasn't herself. Starting at his funeral she was not the intelligent, fascinating and mature woman I had known her for through my life. She collapsed a few days later.
Now, I was a junior in college at the time, at perhaps the second-busiest time of my academic career so far. She collapsed just before my Finals, and was put in a hospice for a bit...but Mother moved her out shortly after and kept her on a respirator in our living room. Now, I was of the fairly strong belief that Grandma had died when her brain had started to go and that the empty husk on that bed was not her, and I deeply resented being imposed upon to pretend that it was. I went back to school for the second semester, glad I wasn't home and subject to all that, and grieved.
It's about this point I started, writing Suikoden III fanfiction. I finished Dropping the Soap just after that semester's exams, when I came home and Grandma was still on life support in our living room. In the weeks that followed, so did the others, particularly The Spindle. A year ago today she finally died.
I still have not forgiven my mother for keeping Grandma breathing for those six months. But the theme of giving up immortality in favor of free will has no more concrete inspiration than that.
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Albert and the Luc/Sarah congomerate. Done. Expect it tonightish.
And as to your question... Albert himself reached out and inspired me on his own, but the point in my life that he attacked me made me especially fulnerable to melodrama. It goes something like this...
My maternal grandparents were my best friends, grandma especially. They lived seven blocks away through most of my childhood, then moved to Florida when I was thirteen and Vegas shortly after. Papa died (expectedly and peacefully) November 2005, but Grandma had been struggling with various forms of cancer and keeping herself alive primarily for his sake, so when he died she succumbed rather dramatically to it. The radiation mdeicine she was taking had torn up her digestive system, and along with brain cancer, well, she wasn't herself. Starting at his funeral she was not the intelligent, fascinating and mature woman I had known her for through my life. She collapsed a few days later.
Now, I was a junior in college at the time, at perhaps the second-busiest time of my academic career so far. She collapsed just before my Finals, and was put in a hospice for a bit...but Mother moved her out shortly after and kept her on a respirator in our living room. Now, I was of the fairly strong belief that Grandma had died when her brain had started to go and that the empty husk on that bed was not her, and I deeply resented being imposed upon to pretend that it was. I went back to school for the second semester, glad I wasn't home and subject to all that, and grieved.
It's about this point I started, writing Suikoden III fanfiction. I finished Dropping the Soap just after that semester's exams, when I came home and Grandma was still on life support in our living room. In the weeks that followed, so did the others, particularly The Spindle. A year ago today she finally died.
I still have not forgiven my mother for keeping Grandma breathing for those six months. But the theme of giving up immortality in favor of free will has no more concrete inspiration than that.