Only 57 days until i reunite with the ocean. if only the visit weren't tainted with the memorial service for my dear grandmother i would be overwhelmed with giddiness. i think she would want me to fully enjoy the visit though. she was the sweetest, most unselfish, tough lady in the world. My hero, truly. And she raised three sons with good hearts, who in turn raised good children. There are some wonderful, rich stories to be told from my family and i think i'm going to start capturing as many of them as i can before all the storytellers have left us. Just last year i learned for the first time the full, detailed story of my paternal grandfather's death. He drowned, just a few years before i was born. But there was so much about it that i never knew before--the exact where and when and how... i will record that story in my father's words sometime. not here, though. One of my cousins drowned when i was really young, too. He was in his early twenties, and was drunk out on a dragger (like the boat on The Perfect Storm) and he fell overboard. His sister named her son after him, and when the child was about a year old HIS father drowned as well. And my other uncle has had two boats sink on him, but was saved. These are the perils of an ocean-dependent existence. Sorry for the downer post. I guess it's just one of those days.