This isn’t a critical commentary on fandom or my being a fangirl, or maybe it is. I’m not sure yet. Frankly, I would have loved to have participated more in the Berlin premiere festivities and all that’s ensued since. I just couldn’t. The events of my life for the last two and half weeks have been consuming and surreal. But first a little history.
For those who haven’t figured it out yet, and I think I said it one time on blog, SO is a vicar in a small town. Yes, that’s right, I’m Harry Kennedy. ;-) And as SO’s significant other, I’ve seen and done many things that sometimes confound me at how life has turned out. When I was pondering what I would be when I grew up, I don’t think anything to do with a vicar ever factored into it. And if someone had told me I would be intimately involved with a vicar, I would have laughed until I wet my pants. For the record, SO wasn’t a vicar for the first almost 20 years I knew him.
But SO being a vicar the last several years means we often deal with tragedy and sometimes deal with death. And when I say deal with it, I mean not only going where tragedy and death have occurred on occasion in order to help the people involved but also having an open door policy to our home, so that hurting and devastated people can come see us when they want. When my kids were little, we put a limitation on this, but despite that, my children have seen and heard a lot of what goes on in the world that’s ugly. We have had drunk people, beat up people, devastated people in our living room on many, many occasions. As to death, SO and I also see the side that most of the public does not see very often if at all — being with someone when they die, the coroner coming to call, the undertaker showing up not long after and sometimes witnessing the devastation left by someone who has killed himself. These are experiences I’ve had countless times since we moved to this place.
To top that off, for over ten years I sat on the board of a cemetery district which oversees cemeteries in a few of the little towns around here, and when you deal with small cemeteries, it means you may be overseeing burials. I’ve overseen countless burials and a couple of reburials, and that includes sometimes standing in an open grave. I remember one time standing in a particular grave where a woman being buried was to be placed beside her parents, who had died about 70 years earlier. When we were preparing the grave, the ground was very soft, and the coffin of one of her parents had shifted a little so that its corner was poking into the woman’s grave site. I looked over and the wood had rotted enough on the buried coffin that there was a hole big enough for my hands to fit in up to my shoulders, and I could see some of the blousy liner coming out of the hole. Yeah, that was creepy, but I got over it.
And I’ve gotten over so many things. Looking at a hole in a buried coffin is nothing. I’ve gotten over being with two teenage boys in the counseling room at the high school when SO told them (at their mother’s request) their dad had committed suicide an hour before, and they had to be told so that the town’s people wouldn’t break it to them. I got over watching a man rejected by his father on the father’s deathbed. I got over one of my closest friend’s sons being lost in the river and being with her when Search and Rescue came to tell her several days later that his body had been found 8 miles down the river. He was 18. I got over the guy down the street shooting himself in the head with a shotgun, and SO and I being asked to come to the place before it had been cleaned up. And I could go on and on with much worse.
Maybe I’m not completely over these things as it’s hard to type this. But when I say I’ve gotten over something, I mean enough to bounce back and do what needs to be done. That’s always been my best ability — to roll with the punches no matter what they are, and I’ve done it and done it and done it, but on Monday, December 9th and the following days, I was almost in a zombie like state.
What created my malaise was three deaths occurring the week before and then about 15 minutes before the premiere started, I got a call about a dear friend of mine who had been careflighted to the city and died within a few hours. No one knew she was ill. The next day I was talking to another friend and said to her how it’s eerie these things usually happen in threes, but this time it was four. As soon as I said it, I stopped and had the horrible thought that this was the beginning of the second three. The next day two more deaths occurred.
All of this is a very small part of the terrible events I’ve come close to over the last 15 years. I ask myself sometimes if it’s only SO’s profession which makes me privy to so much heartache. That’s some of it, but I’m not sure. I don’t know anything except that tragedy has become the norm. Most days I can deal with it, but sometimes I get overwhelmed, and I think that’s a good sign. May I never become so accustomed to horror that it has no effect on me.
Is there any wonder why I want to be lighthearted and laugh when I come here? Does that mean Richard Armitage or anyone else is a lesser person? I hope not. Just know that my blog and many of my comments are supposed to be fun for the most part, and to make it something that is life and death is not my intent, and that’s not a judgment on anyone else. It’s where I’m coming from.
Given all of this, I don’t want to forget the point, which is to love people as God loves, help others as often as I can, and never weary of doing good. And I appreciate this:
And I keep listening to this:
I had to get this post out of my system. Now that it’s done maybe I can get back to cutting up. And I’ll be giving my review of Desolation of Smaug and not whimping out by letting SO do it for me as I did last year. Just need to go see the movie and keep staying away from other reviews and spoilers.
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RAFrenzy 
I have nothing to say, but I wanted to say something.Go to the movies.
Perry beat me to it. There’s nothing substantial I could say now either. Thank you for writing it though. I have been a bit ‘out of the loop’, i.e. I don’t really know what’s been going on in the fandom – apart from the fact there’s been some upset. To me your post shows what’s really important about life. Fangirling can provide moments of relief. I also think that everybody (including the object of the fangirling) is entitled to a bit of fun.
Now I have said a bit more than I wanted. Go to see TDOS asap! Lots of action and no time to dwell on ‘non-hobbity’ thoughts… xxx
Don’t forget the popcorn even if it is $10 a pop. ;)
Sometimes life is just plain old tough. So laugh. And snark. No one can do either like you can!!
No words. Just listening.
Hugs!!!
I couldn’t imagine all you have seen, but, as a fellow human being, my heart goes out to you, and SO. Keep on doing what you do, you are much needed. Richard would be proud, I think. I love you for your heart.
Reading this and then RA’s message makes me wonder if he could have read this post before writing his Christmas message this year.
*Hugs*
I know it’s only a word on a screen, but let’s see it as a hug in spirit.
I appreciate all of you so much! I hope you know that. In person, I am a toucher, but online, I’m a little more aloof. I don’t mean to be that way, but somehow that’s way it comes across. Just know I receive all of the warm thoughts and the hugs! :D
Cill, I think Richard Armitage or his people who keep him informed have their fingers on the pulse of fandom, as it were, and given that, I think a lot of people believe he was responding to them. I have no idea if he read my post, and my instincts are to say no, he didn’t. Surely he doesn’t have time to comb through all of the writings in fandom. Or maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know, but I do know that the words at the end were perfect for me.
Yes…Richard would be so proud of you and SO, so go enjoy yourself/selves for a little while. *hugs*
Finally getting to the point of reading some of my posts late,but yours spoke to me. You are not the only one out there who’s SO deals with so much pain. I have hinted but never really said, Mr. 70 is a police officer, the things they see at best can be hard. They can’t say and it becomes the SO who gets to hear it all. Be macho and deal with it, there are things that effect a person no matter what.
I am with you on the death, we had four in the month of November and I also wondered about the other two. We also had one in October and I will count May. I am done with it and at this point don’t think I could handle any more.
I hope you got to see DOS, that is one of the things I did. For the close to 3 hours there I let myself enjoy the time and only thought of the movie.
Thank you, Kathryn! And good to see you again. I hope you had a good Christmas.
Katie, i appreciate what you’ve said and in more ways than you know. My dad was a policeman and in law enforcement for almost 40 years. I always have a great affinity for policemen and their families. I hope things get better!
And I will definitely go see DOS. :)
[…] Similar views (by extension) have been expressed in the Richard Armitage fandom (more recent examples are available on Twitter) — people argue that we participate in fandom for fun, and life is horrible enough without making fandom about all the horrible things, among which many would include politics. The first piece of this question — how much Richard Armitage should talk about politics — is familiar terrain for us. Some commentators are generally averse to Armitage making political statements, and others (like me) are more positive about it. Armitage said almost nothing political until 2013; it was so surprising to some fans that there was a tussle at the time over whether the journalist tricked him into doing it. After that he was still quiet until 2016, when he had quite a bit to say about the refugee question and about Brexit. It was unlikely that Armitage would influence many previously held opinions. Current political science research tends to demonstrate that celebrity endorsements of any kind often negatively impact a candidate’s or position’s attractiveness in the general electorate as opposed to niche groups that already appreciate either the celebrity or the candidate/position endorsed. But it fills in my knowledge of Armitage, which is a plus, and which is important for the emotional project behind this blog, even when what he says bothers or enrages me. […]