The Remembering

It's always a little weird being back home in my parents' house. The house looks the same, except Dad changed the colour. The interior looks the same. Same furniture as I remember growing up, more or less. Mum got a new instrument called a touchboard, and you wave your hand over it and it plays this nice, soothing music. Dad's Zabrak quetarra still hangs from the wall in the living room. But it's different still. My room isn't my room anymore, but a guest room. The posters and art I used to have on the walls are either in boxes in storage or were thrown out after I moved away. My neighbourhood friends have all moved to other towns. Spacer, my pet spukamas (a native Corellian housecat that my dad brought back from one of his trips to Corellia), is now buried in the back yard. I loved that cat. My younger brother Wolt moved out a couple of years ago, and he's now a flight engineer on an ore freighter. But he came back for this, which is great. It's weird, because to me, he's still my little brother, but he's a man now. I mean, he's been shot at before! That's something I've never had to do...yet.

But despite all the changes, home is still home. It's still memory lane for me.

We had the funeral yesterday. It was really great to see all these people who knew and loved my grandfather. A lot of people he worked with at CEC, and a lot of people who knew him through the various clubs and things that he was a part of. Wolt and I also got to reconnect with some of our cousins, which was great. It helped me forget about how much it hurt to lose Grandpa, at least for a little while. My cousin Callie and I had a good cry about it at the after-party at my parents' house. She and I were especially close to him, and I think it was good for us to try and process that together. Callie lives in Chasin City and works for the parks and rec department, and talking with her made me really wish I didn't live on a desert planet where only 2% of the darn thing is inhabitable. Maybe someday I'll move back here and get a news job...

Anyway, after a nice dinner with my whole family, we played some bolo-ball out in the back yard. We had a great time. My uncle Kennick was a star bolo-baller in college. He's getting along in the years, and it was fun to tease him about being slow, but you can tell he still knows how to handle himself out on the field.

Well, time to get off this thing. I promised Callie I'd hang out with her today. She wants me to meet some of her friends. Or a friend. One of the two. She thinks we'll get a long really well. Aw.

Later, vornskrs (I know, it doesn't really work)

JJK