No Sweet without Bitter

(listening to J.S. Bach's "Wir glauben all an einen Gott," BWV 680)
For many weeks I have felt unmotivated and uncreative with regards to this blog. I have had nothing to say, or at least nothing I felt was worth saying. I have cooked things, I have taken walks, Lindz and I have discussed what we want to give each other for Christmas as well as why the hell we're living in Raleigh. My mother drove down to visit us.
("Dieu parmi Nous", Olivier Messiaen)
Work has gone through varying degrees of tolerability and awfulness. I had been craving the opportunity to get away for some time on my own, perhaps a road trip. My wish was granted, but not in the fashion I would have wished. My grandmother, the mother of my late father, died on November 5th.
("Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, Op.7, No.3", Marcel Dupre)
Perhaps it was a bit sooner than we expected, but she had wanted to leave this world for years. She had been predeceased by my grandfather and her only son, my dad. She was 93.
I got in my car and drove the 800-plus miles to join my family in Michigan. Here are some pictures which I hastily snapped from the road:
Pilot Mountain, close to the Virginia/North Carolina Border:
 

The West Virginia State Capitol:
 

Of course, it is only when it is too late that a thick-headed fool like myself appreciates the history seen and made by such a person. She was married during the Great Depression, and she lived on a farm. My soft, deedless life does not allow me to comprehend decades of subsistence without the choices, escapes and self-gratification to which subsequent generations feel entitled. My brother, brother-in-law and I were pallbearers. We carried her to her grave which is next to my father's, his father's, and his father's. I pointed out to my young nephew that he was standing in the presence of the remains of two men after whom he was named.
("Fantasia and Fugue in G minor," BWV 542, J.S. Bach)
I'm feeling a bit contemplative and nostalgic, obviously. My thoughts really haven't been on Grandma so much as on my past and my family. I was compelled to ruefully notice how sparse the funeral attendance was. It wasn't because my grandmother wasn't a well-known and well-loved person; it was because so many of the people who knew and loved her had already passed away. However, I was comforted by that which endured: the church which she had attended and in which the pastor officiated her into the hereafter was virtually unchanged since the last time I was there (my grandfather's funeral, over sixteen years ago). The high, vaulted ceiling, the stained glass windows, the narthex's fieldstone floor and the organ were all reassuringly unaltered. The surrounding flat farmland, patches of woods and corn silos are much as they had been for decades. German Lutherans in Michigan are not overly anxious to change things. The funeral luncheon consisted of comforting, Midwestern food: scalloped potatoes, ham, cole slaw, pasta salad, lots of cookies, and stollen, made by my sister in remembrance of Grandma (she had always made it at Christmastime).
We drank beer and talked afterwards. It was good to be home with the family, spending time on the soil which I had taken for granted before I moved away. My nephews and niece are a delight, the silver lining to the cloud of my brooding.
("Toccata, Symphony V," Charles-Marie Widor)
Naturally, I availed myself of things which are available nowhere else. I bought some tasty Michigan beers, and some meat products:

I also drove up to Mount Pleasant to visit, for the first time in ten years, the campus of my alma mater, CMU. Young, beautiful people with their whole life ahead of them were everywhere. They were toting their bookbags over the same sidewalks I had trodden ten years and twenty-odd pounds ago. I strolled by the coffee house where I did a lot of French homework, The University Cup: 

I also had a lovely pint of Two Hearted Ale at a favorite old bar downtown, The Bird.
After a bracing stroll, I headed back to my old home in Saginaw. I headed back to Raleigh the next morning. I had spent three full, satisfying days in my home town.