Around a week and a half ago, me, my siblings, my dad, and his girlfriend went to Colorado Springs to celebrate and mourn the death of my grandpa. The flight was from HOU to DEN, it was at around 3:00pm when we got to our gate, and it took about 2 hours(?) to fly. This time, I didn't sleep on the flight--instead, I read through about fifty pages of The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton, a 'pop economy' book about Modern Monetary Theory. It's a "modern" theory on money, particularly money in the US, and how we should flip our perceptions of it completely. The thesis, or, main point of the theory, is that because of the transition from US currency being backed by gold to fiat currency--money that is issued by the state--the government doesn't need to manage its budget in a way that a typical household would. Every year there is talk about The Deficit, and that it keeps getting way too big. However, because we issue our own currency, it doesn't necessarily matter how much we spend--as long as we have counteractive measures to handle inflationary pressures: taxes, issuing federal jobs, etc. It's a lot, and I'm definitely not doing justice in explaining it and I certainly haven't finished the book. No matter.
We landed in Denver close to midnight and waited for our bus to come pick us up from the airport. Denver is probably the coolest airport I've been to. The terminal we walked through was very large and vast, and you make your way to the different pick-up spots through underground train. Above the onboarding doors are these Mesoamerican-esque structures: stone (at least made too look like it) levels dashed with ferns and foliage, all supported by tunnels that run throughout the airport.
Fedor Vasilyev -- Sea with ships (1873)
After our bus picked us up and drove us to their rental car area, we sat for about maybe 1-2 hours waiting for my dad to incrementally make his way up the line to rent a car. It was a nice van, I don't remember the brand or model, but it looked and smelled good--however we would have troubles with later throughout the weekend. From there on, we drove and I slept and so did the others. We arrived at my grandpa's old house, now empty. I slept in one of the guest rooms on a floral-decorated set of bedsheets and pillows. The next day, I woke up and rotted for 3 hours. Our cousins were going to arrive a couple hours after lunch time, so I waited until lunch to walk over to my uncle's house just a street down. We ate these ribs, which were middling to say the least, and talked about stuff and whatnot. I noticed my dad's girlfriend staying a bit quiet, which I understand, since she's very new to the family. I did hear from my uncles though that they liked how my dad finally found someone he could laugh with.I wrapped up lunch and walked back to grandpa's house, in which I rotted for a couple more hours until I got a call from my dad that my cousins had made it to my uncle's house. For further clarification, because there's quite a few uncles, I'll refer to this uncle as Uncle 'D'--the other uncles will be referred to as Uncle 'N' and 'S'. I was excited to see my cousins since I hadn't seen them in about 2-3 years. A bit of history with them: I had been quite a depressing cousin to be around for them. Whenever we would have a family reunion, I would resort to siphoning myself off from them when they hung out, sitting by myself, whether it be in their camper or church-house, on my phone or reading a book. I was a little anti-social and anti-family at the time, but since then I've matured and gained the ability to talk to them without reserve. They've grown up significantly since the last time I saw them. When I entered Uncle 'D's house, they were all having boy talk, particularly cousin 'A', who had recently broken up with her ex-boyfriend. It was fun to talk about relationship stuff with them, since I'd never done so before. We talked all night, and 'P' flew in and joined us as well.
'P's story was interesting in particular. Apparently, he was notified of grandpa's death in the middle of his training camp for The Army, meaning he had to wrestle with the emotions while trekking through some of the worst weather conditions and with the heaviest load he bore on his back. When he was given the funeral date, he immediately booked a flight without permission from his commanding officers, which 'P' says: You are not supposed to do things like that. Nonetheless, he was determined to make it to Colorado, permission or not. However, doing so, would result in him considered as going AWOL (absent without official leave), which has serious ramifications when you're trying to get into the military. He had to fight a serious and arduous battle:
But that's what he did--he fought up the chain of command until they approved it. He called it a 'miracle'. By that point, he was already two hours behind and almost didn't make it to his flight, but I'm glad that he did because he is by far my funniest cousin.
Frederic Edwin Church -- Aurora Borealis (1865)
The next day was the day of the funeral service. We had a nice little breakfast in the morning, and then we hung out and talked at grandpa's house. We got dressed: I wore the same suit I wore for my other grandpa's funeral, this time with 'P's tie. He tied it for me because I don't know how to. On our drive to the funeral service, the rental car suddenly displayed an ERROR status on the dashboard, and then stopped at the intersection. For 10-15 minutes, we scrambled to Google to find out what happened and how to fix it and found that this particular model had to be recalled two years ago for this exact issue. Then, it suddenly started working again and we drove to the church where the service was being held.
The moment I walked in, I immediately wanted to cry. Grandpa's picture was propped up and staring at me. It was the first time that someone I was close to, someone I genuinely felt connected to, passed. I kept the tears in though--for some strange reason, perhaps to keep up decorum, I felt it was immature to cry before anything had even started. When the service started though, I was a wreck. It was a particular section of the reading of his obituary: they accompanied it with a slideshow of pictures of Grandpa throughout his life, and a picture of me & my family showed up, back when I was maybe 8 or 9. I just let it all out and 'P' comforted me while I sobbed and sobbed. I had never cried that hard before.
Some more stuff happened, but that info's between us cousins *wink emoji*.