Kreativ Blogger Award

Okay, this is my first blogging award so I'm a little speechless right now. First of all, I'd like to thank the academy.  And, of course, Adam for bestowing this creatively spelled award on the death writer blog.  There are two K's in my name, so I like the way it's spelled.  Adam made it really special by saying in his award's post that people hand out these blog awards like HPV at a frat party, but I still feel pretty darn special. There might be a gyno trip in my future, though.  Okay, so here's the award.  It looks a little shabby and should probably be redesigned, but it's my precious, so who cares?  Looks aren't everything.


In order to accept this award, I've got to do a few things...
1.  Thank & link back to the person who nominated you.  (Been there, done that.  Next!)
2.  Answer the ten questions. (I'm gettin' there.)
3.  Share ten random facts/thoughts about yourself  (Yeah, yeah, yeah.)
4. Nominate seven worthy blogs for the Kreativ Blogger Award (Share the love like a chain letter!)

Okay, here we go...
1.  What's your favorite song?
Um, like at this very moment?  That's a ridiculous question and I'm going to give you an equally ridiculous response.
2.  What's your favorite desert? (Hey, that's how it was spelled and I'm a stickler for details.)
The Sahara.  But, if what they really want to know what to serve at my party, that would be molten chocolate cake, which I make really well.

3.  What do you do when you're upset?
I like to work out when I'm mad, so I make it a point to really piss myself off every morning by standing under florescent lighting in my birthday suit.

4.  Which is your favorite pet?

I have two.  Violet and Judy and I would never pick favorites.  Could you?  Look at them.  They're both adorable and snuggly!

5.  Which do you prefer, black or white?
Well, I pretty much always dress in black, so I'm going to go with black.

6.What is your biggest fear?
Spiders.  When I lived in SW Colorado, we had these gigantic furry spiders called "Wolf Spiders" that lived around our house.  I told my husband that if one of those things ever set foot in our house, we were moving back to California.  I'd post a picture, but I can't even look at them without getting freaked out.  But if you are into that kind of thing, check out Kim Hosey's photos.  She loves spiders.

7. What is your attitude mostly?
This is another ridiculous question, but here I go.  I'm pretty mellow most of the time, especially while listening to The Carpenters.  But I have been known to be a tad neurotic and prone to social anxiety.

Ten Random Facts About the Death Writer

1.  I actually do like the Carpenters and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
2.  I like to write letters.  Remember those things that used to arrive in the mailbox and were handwritten and there was a stamp on the outside?  I write to inmates.  They are wonderful letter writers.
3.  My husband and I are both the youngest of five children.
4.  I wanted to be a criminal psychologist until I did my internship at the Hall of Justice orchestrating family visits and phone calls for the felons.  Most of them wanted to date me.
5.  My middle name is Jo.
6.  My father is a professional poker player.
7.  My favorite place in the world is the library.
8.  I love going to see movies but I like to be the first person there so I usually arrive about an hour early so I can claim my seat in the front row with a railing in front of me to rest my legs.
9.  I'm six feet tall.
10.  At about 16, I developed a white streak in the front of my hair.  Now it's pretty much all white, but I dye it because one time when I let the streak out, my son's friend said, "Your mom looks like Cruella DeVille."  Nice.

Okay, so here's the peeps I'm gonna nominate for the Kreativ Blogger Award.  If you choose to accept this HPV laden statuette, follow the rules and wash your hands afterwards.  I am not sending my awards out to these people because I don't want them to feel obligation.  But if they happen to find this and it's a happy surprise, they can run with it.  I'll bring the hand sanitizer!

Tuesday Movie: Ghost

Ghost came out in 1990 and starred Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, but it made Whoopi Goldberg an Oscar winner for best actress in a supporting role. It was a drama, a mystery, a romance and a comedy all rolled into one.  And it probably made the Righteous Brothers a ton more money because a new generation fell in love with their song, "Unchained Melody."

I know I have a penchant for older movies.  It's probably because movies about ghosts in this day and age are too dang scary.  Paranormal Activity anyone?  Um, no thanks.  I'd rather laugh and cry than sleep with the lights on.  And Patrick Swayze was a mighty attractive ghost.  Here's the trailer.  Sorry for the sound quality.  Darn you youtube!


My favorite part of this movie is Whoopi as Oda Mae Brown, a sketchy medium who discovers she has a real gift for communicating with the dead.

In Mary Roach's book "Spook," Mary goes to medium school and remains a skeptic.  Hey, speaking of Mary Roach, she's going to be on my blog tomorrow for Writer Wednesday.  I interviewed her this past weekend.  I giggled.  A lot.  Be sure and check back tomorrow!


Monday Mournings: The Death of a Friend

I'm Amanda. I live in North Yorkshire, right on the edge of the Dales - commonly known as God's Own Country. We moved here ten years ago from London. I'm a drama tutor on the shady side of 40, married for 20 years and with a 16 year old son. I blog mostly about drama, gaming and bits and pieces of my life but in the end it all boils down to an over-riding interest in story-telling. After finding the Deathwriter's blog during the A-Z challenge, I became a follower. We don't talk enought about death or the dying.


DW: Who was the person that died?


Amanda: Sue was one of my closest friends. We'd known each other for around 15 years at the time of her death in 2007. I'm writing about her partly as a tribute to an amazing human being, and partly because we talked at length about her impending death.


DW: How old were you at the time?


Amanda: 43

DW: How old was Sue?


Amanda: 43

DW: Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?


Amanda: It felt sudden, but wasn't. Sue drank heavily and had done so for years. She collapsed at the end of 2006 when her liver started to give up and died of liver failure in November 2007. She phoned me in August 2007 when she'd been rejected for a liver transplant and told me she was going to die. I spent a lot of time traveling backwards and forwards to London to visit her in the hospital after that, but we'd been talking nearly daily for several months before that. Sue was a very tough lady indeed. She outlasted all the medical predictions and several near death scares.

DW: So you said earlier that you and Sue talked about her death. Tell me about that.


Amanda: Oh yes. We talked a lot. Rather obliquely at times. Sue knew she was dying, and made all the arrangements for her funeral. She asked me to write her eulogy, and threatened to come back to haunt me if it didn't do her justice. It was a strange situation. We chatted pretty much every day, and she became very frightened. Those were bad times. She hated the hospital and fought very hard to get out and into a nursing home, where she felt she would be a person rather than a collection of malevolent symptoms. It wasn't so much death that worried her, as the slipping away of her own sense of being a person, mostly engendered by the hospital. She did make it to a nursing home and was happy there for a month before she finally slipped into the coma she never woke up from.

DW: Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before Sue died?


Amanda: I'd lost both my parents by then. Both were very much expected deaths - my father had been ill for years and had a proper Victorian deathbed with the family around him - going extremely peacefully. My mother fought tooth and nail and it was awful. There were my own three miscarriages, and the sudden death of an ex-lover who was epileptic and drowned in a bath. I wouldn't say death has stalked me at all, but by the time Sue's illness was clear, it was at least a familiar path.

DW: Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?


Amanda: Sue's death was remarkably bonding. She had a gift for friendship and a lot of people came together over the last months of her life to support her and each other.


DW: Is there anything you wish you'd done differently with this person?


Amanda: On a practical level, I wish we'd been living closer. Emotionally, while it was appalling in some ways to watch her disintegrating and being frightened, it felt right to be there for her. This was her time, not mine.

DW: Was she buried or cremated?


Amanda: Sue had the funeral she had planned in every detail and was cremated.


DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?


Amanda: Writing the eulogy was the most helpful thing for me. It helped me to clarify exactly how much I valued Sue and how and why I missed her. It might sound fanciful to say that it allowed me to edit my grief, but in a way that's exactly what happened. The first impact of a death is so overwhelming that all you can feel is pain in a big indeterminate blob. Writing about it turned the pain into sharp specific points, but also became a happy thing to do, ensuring that the memories were kept clear.


Click here to read Amanda's eulogy for Sue


DW: What music did she have at her memorial?


Amanda: Being Sue, she picked some specific music for her funeral. "Mr Slater's Parrot" by the Bonzo Dog DooDah Band, the final chorus from Bach's St Matthew Passion, and the madrigal from Ruddigore ("When the buds are blossoming").


Thank you so much Amanda for sharing your experience! It's been a pleasure. And without further ado...


This one goes out to Sue