June 27, 2008

Working hard on In the Country of the Young, as I can and do when somebody shows the least interest.

Word came from the Jerwood Opera Writing Fellowship. I didn’t have to read the email to know we had not gotten it. I am not one who EVER gets the money, or the prize, anything up front or easy, anything without having to work for it ten times over, and I’m afraid my luck might have ruined Frank’s. On the other hand– I hate my occasional impulse to be fair– it’s hard to see how I would have profited from the fellowship, the libretto already being written. Frank and his unwritten music is another story.

My sister discovers that dad had no life insurance after all. Goodyear supplied $13000 worth, but as part of financial hard times sent out a message, in 2007, that policies would be cancelled if a one-time $250 premium were not paid. Father, of course, making sometimes $8000 in the course of a day, grudged the premium, and so we are out $13000. Linda said, "This is so like dad," and it is. She reminds me that we still have money coming, and that we shouldn’t blame him. I don’t blame him and, at this point, am managing to live without expectations, not even speculating on what chickens to count, hatched or no. But I might add: yes, we may have money coming to us, but at no point was that his intention.

I do not blame him for anything, knowing how much of his life and how many of his decisions were based on fear. There were times when reason or evidence might have overcome fear. . . but that seemed never quite to happen.

Is grumpiness a stage of grief?