A Day of Sorrow · 12:03am Apr 27th, 2020
Today is a special day. This is a kind of day which separates your life on "before" and "after." Today, we've lost one of the few decent people we still have left. Today, ended the last person in my own family that never did any wrong to any of us. Today, my Grandfather has died.
I know what you all thinking, but this has nothing to do with the big C. Some people are just too old. My Grandfather was 82 years old.
When you get this old, life becomes... more of a burden, than anything else. He was remarkably healthy for his age, in fact, he had a stable work at such age. An 80-year-old engineer, imagine that! Still, the last few months weren't kind. This was a bad way go, a really ugly one.
If his example can teach anything, it's that you shouldn't cling on to life for longer than you need to.
Unlike my other Grandfather, I can say that I knew him pretty well. Back when I was little, we spent a lot of time together. Even while he was slowing down, he completely bewildered me with all the stuff he knew. He even remembered the last World War. He wasn't a soldier, but he had a lot of things to tell nonetheless. His favourite story was about the Wehrmacht occupation and it is not like anything you might imagine a story like this to be.
Back in those days, his family played hosts to a German officer, who proved to be a very decent person. He didn't simply sleep in their home for nothing. He shared his sizeable officer rations and taught my Grandfather to speak German. Hans even took time to play with him from time to time! Bet this ain't a story you usually hear on the subject.
It doesn't end well, though. It ends in red, in more senses than one.
People in my country say that the only time a man should cry in on a funeral. Well, I don't cry on funerals. I think I don't mourn in the way most others do. I believe that this is not the way to venerate our dear people. The better way is to honor them is to do what would make them happy. It's no use to the dead, of course, but this isn't for them, it is us, those who yet live. I don't know what your own respected... deceased would want, but I can tell you what they wouldn't want. They wouldn't want you to cry all day long, they would never want you to be sad, especially not because of them. This is why I do not cry, it wouldn't make the Grandfather happier.
I'm so sorry....I hope he finds peace.
well, I doubt anything I say has much weight or meaning, but from how you have described your own life and the life with your family, it sounds like your grandfather put in an incredible amount of effort. Effort both to be decent, and to keep living and working for as long as he could. He must have seen a lot and told amazing things.
5253509
He also happened to be the last member of my family had no quarrels with. With absolutely everyone else I had some kind of issues in the past.
Grandpa never dared to talk down on me, rarely ever told me what to do and never interfered with my business. Guess he was the only one wise enough left to know that things don't work that way with me. He knew he had no influence, so he never bothered. He was remarkably wise for your typical post-commie oldtimer. The only problem is that he didn't have the gut to help either. Well, that's just how things are for me, I suppose. I always have to do everything myself.
Funny how everything ends up being. My line is full of remarkable people. My great-great-grandfather was an actual noble at Tsar's court, and the best part is that he wasn't Russian, meaning I don't have much of their spoiled blood. Another one of my ancestors was a really-really big man in the Party, the kind of a man that can have generals crawl over each other to get his whim done. A soldier there, a scientist here and here we are.
Despite how smart everyone in my family is, everything goes to shit every generation. My dad had a murderous issue with his own dad before I was born, that noble guy managed to get almost everyone in the family (himself included) killed during the Revolution and that high-rank dude just vanished without a trace, I don't know one bit about him.
5253527
had a feeling this mean both bloodshed and communism.
Given how rough you have said you past was, at least not having bad memories of someone is pretty good.
Your bloodline sounds fascinating enough to fill a book about, likely even more.
5253639
Indeed it does. Every damn kid wants to be special and not like everyone else. No one of them ever thinks what it actually means though.
Sadly, nobody no longer remembers what our bloodline went like before the Revolution. Commies had the practice to strip people of their memory, sorta. We all were supposed to be "Soviet People."
One thing about being a walking novel material is that I can tell a huge lot of stories. I wish some of them were happy though.
Commies torched the village. Were generous enough to leave the general population alone at least. Shows you exactly the difference. Nazis, who we all were taught to hate were better people than out supposed "liberators."
5253641
"Be careful what you wish for" that phrase rings true to much in life. Plenty can have a dark side, or is completely a dark side one just never sees.
History belongs to whoever wins, and in the case of the Soviets, their common actions was to destroy the identity and the spirit that other people had. If you can crush the soul, the culture, the very roots of another people, they won't have as much fight left in them and you can mold them into obedient servants. If the process is completed, it more often than not works frighteningly well.
They were the enemy, and more importantly, the losers of the war, and so the focus is what would fit the narrative better. There is much about the Third Reich and USSR that is left out of history classes due to it not fitting what others want to be taught.
5254370
Both of those are long gone now. Better start teaching, otherwise they might return yet.
5254381
Plenty would rather censor the history that teach it.
5254945
Yes, they would. The whole reason why we will never get out of this ugly dump we've been since the oldest times. No matter what kind of technology we have, everything stays the same in the end.
Some asshole who knows how to tie a few words together gets on top, then purges everyone he doesn't like. It has been like this with Romans, before them it was with Spartans and Egyptians, before them with Assyrians. In a few centuries, everyone gets sick of their "powerful" leaders and rolls their heads. Usually done by nobles or Honor Guard (in case or Romans); the most recent iteration includes an angry mob, the same result, though. You'd think all's going to be well from that point on, but noooope. In a few dozen years nobody cares about what the hell was before anymore. Then some shit happens, like a real big war, or famine, or something; then some mouthy bastards start naming the guilty and promising to fix everything. The circle starts again.
It's always the same. Every. Single. Time. This happened so many times that you can't even count all of them anymore. It happens because people do not have enough wisdom to learn from their past, they just don't want to. Nobody likes to know that your nation killed a few million civilians a generation or two ago, that makes you feel kinda bad about yourself. It gets kinda hard to be proud of being born in some "great" country. Pride is hard to let go off.
Most of all, facing the ugly facts demands a brave person. People are cowardly.
5254951
You kill a king and think your changing your land rather fast, then you see you have another king who is in no way better than the last.
Some people know it, they are few and far between and they either don't bother saying anything, can't say anything, or are the people who are leading the next "big change" to get themselves whatever it is they covet
The people who should be in charge, are usually the ones you see in the streets in a pool of their own blood, the kind that really believed in something better and were not the ones to run and hide from danger but run straight towards it so that those who come after would get something more than they did. The ones who wind up in charge are either the ones who hid in the back, or ducked away the moment they could
The song and dance has not changed, just the outfit and the gala.
5257892
The people who can be found "on the streets in a pool of their own blood" are in their position for a good reason... or rather a bad one. This kind of people does get to sit in offices in some countries, most prominently in Russia. Russia is the only country in the world where your criminal record is considered to be a point of pride. They have a very self-critical saying which can be roughly translated: "Half the people are convicts, the other half guards them."
They may know all there's to know about how to survive in this brutal world of ours, however, survivalist mentality is entirely self-centred. You don't want people who think like that having any official authority.
5257899
Just so I was clear, when I talk about the people in the streets in their own blood, I mean people who die in moments of change to try and get rid of whatever crap leader they currently have. People who are actually willing to die for something and aren't just in it to plunder wealth or covet power.
5258028
They are not any different. I can tell you from experience that being willing to die for something is never a good thing. There are only two kinds of people who can do that. People with nothing left to lose and fanatics. To do the deed willingly the alternative must be worse than the actual dying. A person at that level of misery doesn't make a good leader.
5258056
While undoubtedly that holds weight, there are things worth fighting for, and you don't always have to see death as a preferable alternative to living under those conditions, sometimes you just want something better for your own flesh and blood and for your people, that alone does not make anyone a fanatic.
5258126
That doesn't make you want to die. You will if you have to. That's called "duty."
There aren't many things worth fighting for in the world. They are exceedingly rare, even. It's just that sometimes you are forced to fight anyway.
5258201
true, I could have picked my words better I see.