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BlogComm
COMM 3030 - Communication and Social Responsibility
Values
Posted posted by Antok the Destroyer @ 3:14 PM
I agree with what Kyle is saying, and it's interesting how care and connection at times of crisis seems to be a pretty common theme throughout life. What Kyle wrote also made me think about the generational differences between my grandfather and I.When I was young, maybe about five or six, my grandfather took some of the family and me on a camping trip. He was always a very joking guy, would always play tricks, and tease me. We had a great relationship before this trip. I forget how we got started talking, or what we were specifically talking about, but he told me not to laugh. As any five or six-year-old would do to their silly grandfather, I started to giggle the second he was done talking. When I started to walk away he grabbed me by the arm, spun me around and knocked me to the ground with an open palm to the face, nearly knocking me out. I don't remember much about what happened after that other than what I was told by my sister, but I've thought about that moment, and ran through it in my head many times since it happened. For the longest time I hated him...
Growing up with that memory of my grandfather made it very hard for me to like him, and I rarely ever spoke to him outside of the holiday season when my parents would make me call him to wish a merry Christmas. But, going back to what Kyle said, I feel as though I missed a great opportunity, and It was only after I got a bit older that I realized it.
When he was rushed to the hospital for a heart attack, it hit home that I had made a mistake and so did he. In times of dire circumstance fault, blame, and consequence seem to disappear. I guess it all goes back to the saying of "you don't know what you have until its gone" and I realize now how important it is step back from your own BS from time to time and reevaluate the things that truly matter to you. He might have over reacted and I was probably being disrespectful, but it's an experience that has helped me understand and appreciate those things that are truly valuable.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Poem by: Alfred Tennyson
