April Now

April 22 doesn't mean much to me, neither does April 18. But April 19, April 20, and April 21 mean a lot.

In either 1990 or 1991, the excitement culminating on April 19 was the town of Waco, TX and the compound of the radical religious sect, the Branch Davidians. On that final siege, federal agents raided the compound, and there is infrared footage of an ATF tank running over an American citizen. It is not clear if the tragedy of killing those people to enter the compound was worse than the abuses happening inside. April 19, 1991 was the date of my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. This happened about four months after their second daughter's death from breast cancer. In 1995, April 19 became the date of the sudden death of 256 people in Oklahoma City, OK. A bomb exploded outside an office building and destroyed a significant part of a busy office building.

April 20 brings back memories of college and the annual NORML concert at that one bar in St. Cloud, MN. However, for the most part, it is a normal day (no pun intended).

April 21 is actually not much of a day either. At least, it wasn't until last year when I got a phone call from somewhere in Port Edwards, WI, the location of my grandmother's nursing home. I IMed my cousin who, apparently, had just gotten off the phone with another cousin. Grandma was dead. It has been almost a year now (not yet, it isn't the 21st yet), and I still get worked up thinking about it. I have a hard time saying anything more blunt than "my grandmother passed away." She was such a presence - a force - in the my life and in the lives of the entire [my last name] family. 12 kids, minus the first one that doesn't like us and the second one that died in 1990, and 17 grandkids, minus the three from the oldest kid, growing up with The Farm and Grandma. This is an important day in my life.