Unbalanced

Two things lately have disturbed my nascent equilibrium. The first is the death of the husband of an acquaintance in the bear/leather community. We were mostly Fakebook friends, though we did run into each other at Touché occasionally. It was on FB that he posted about rushing his husband to the same hospital where monshu had known client cachet and I even briefly considered meeting him there. Instead, I took a nap and awoke to a tearful video of him explaining that they were unable to revive him. Two days later, they held his memorial at the Leather Archives and Museum, which I attended. I can safely say that it was unlike any other I've been to.

The same day he died, aadroma inducted his widower and me into the online support group he's been a part of for a while now. (It's almost three years since nytemarewulf went and died on him.) At first, I was feeling I didn't have much in common with the other members, most of whom lost their partners suddenly and are having trouble letting go. monshu's illness gave me plenty of time to get used to the idea of being without him, though--as I told my newly-widowed pal--nothing like death to point up the difference between notional and experiential knowledge. But if so, I found myself getting sniffly almost daily.

I'm willing to blame that mostly on having to plan monshu's memorial service. I guess that's why you do these things, because it makes the tragedy concrete in a way other chats and conversations don't. Given how much I hate event planning, I've been less anxious about the whole thing then I feared. But I'm still losing sleep, even with no fewer than three professional event planners volunteering their time and advice. Diego even came to the restaurant with me to chat with the staff and scope it out, and his approval did a lot to calm me.

The one consolation is that I don't have to do this on a tight budget. monshu left more than enough to cover all his funeral expenses. I could even do something much more grandiose if I wanted (I briefly considered hiring a boat big enough to host the whole affair), but that wasn't his style. Better to keep it modest and have more left to donate to good causes (like the organisation we adopted our cat from). What it does mean, though, that if snags appear, I can throw money to cover them, and that's a huge load off my mind.