rosiedoes | Entries tagged with sad

My nonno (my father's father) passed away, this afternoon. He was 89, and had suffered from Parkinson's since before I was born. Over the last six months, his health deteriorated dramatically and suddenly, until Dad and I made an emergency trip out there in February.

He nearly died while we were there, due to a negligent GP, but he hung on until today - despite breaking both hips in a fall a few weeks ago.

One of my clearest memories of him - aside from being the one person who sat with him and held his hand while the doctors tried to unblock a catheter at a critical moment, and the rest of the family flailed around and argued about whose fault it was - was of my brothers and I, then 11, 8 and 6 years old respectively, sitting on the porch at the family's country house and singing rude rhymes in English, while he clapped and cheered, oblivious to the obscenities his grandchildren were chanting.

He was a serious man, with a dry sense of humour. In February, when my cousin's fiance, Gaetano, asked how he was feeling, he glanced at him for a moment and said, "Yeah, I'm going dancing, now," before shuffling into the kitchen in his pyjamas.

Despite being in his late 80s, and working hard for most of his life to support his wife and sons - even moving to Germany for a few years when my father was a child, so that they could afford to rebuild the decrepit family home in Collesano - until Christmas, he was still wandering around the steeply hilled mountain village where he had been born and raised, lugging home food and doing all the things Sicilian men are expected to; a real trooper.

I wish over the years I'd had more time to spend with him, and I think he felt the same, but I'm glad he's passed, because I know he's been in a lot of discomfort and while he was sharp as a knife, mentally, he has had to watch my Nonna - his wife of nearly sixty years - descend into dementia, and I'm glad he's gone before she became unrecognisable.

So, for those of you who drink, raise a glass of Italian red like the wine he used to make from his vinyard, and for those of you who don't, some Nutella on crusty bread is one of the most Italian things in the world. Indulge in his honour.

Buona notte, amore mio. xoxo

Really sad to hear about Ryan Dunn. He was far and away my favourite of the Jackass boys. He seemed somehow a little more with it than a lot of the others, and he was incredibly sweet.

If the rumours of drink driving are true - and somehow, I think most of us will already have concluded that they are - then I hope to God that this is a lesson for people.

Don't drink and drive. Please, just don't do it.

I get the feeling though, that for a guy like Ryan, a dramatic and fiery death would have been something he'd be quite proud of. So long and goodnight, dude.

Awful news, today. One of the world's last remaining air-worthy B17 Flying Fortresses, The Liberty Belle, has 'crashed' outside of Aurora, near Chicago.

According to news sources, another aircraft informed the pilot that the Liberty Belle was on fire and they made an emergency crash-landing, after which much of the plane was destroyed. The seven people on board all escaped uninjured, thankfully.

Growing up, I spent several years as an Air Cadet - a member of 398 (Staines & Egham) Squadron - and at around that age I first saw the film 'Memphis Belle' (clips of the real Memphis Belle here), which was a heavily fictionalised version of a true story, about the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress, which was the first to complete its minimum required missions during WWII.

From that point on, I was in love with B-17s. They were such enormous and hardy craft - cramped as buggery inside, and carrying a ten-man crew, but displaying incredible endurance, many returning from raids over Germany with damage which would be catastrophic for most other aircraft.

Famously, the 414th's 'All American' flew back from Germany with its rear-section almost completely severed, as in the picture below. It broke in two upon landing.

Other planes came back with quite literally no nose:

Many others made it home with their gigantic tails - a core factor in both flying and steering the plane - all but ripped to shreds. 'Hang the Expense Again III' (not sure what happened to I & II, but if I had to hazard a guess...) made it home like this, even after the explosion blasted out her tail-gunner, who miraculously survived.

Once, at RAF Sealand, during a summer camp in 1997, with the Air Training Corps, I was allowed to touch an altimeter from an unknown B-17 and it blew my mind.

There are very, very few airworthy Fortresses left in the world, and the Liberty Belle was one of the few (the Memphis Belle is currently being restored, in Ohio). She never saw active combat and was sold in 1947 for scrap, before being saved by Pratt & Whitney, which used her as a testing craft for their engines. In the late-70s she was damaged by a tornado, while located at an aeronautical museum, and her fuselage was broken. Afterward, she was used to educate and provide experiences of flight in a B-17, by the Liberty Foundation.

I genuinely cried, writing this and looking up photographs to show just how amazing these aircraft were. Many enthusiasts would tell you that these planes helped win the war because they brought the war to the enemy - even when they were suffering 80% losses.

It's a truly devastating thing to see, and I hope that the remaining Fortresses are maintained and looked after as lovingly as the Liberty Belle was before this accident.

Goodbye, old girl.

Yesterday, I heard from a dear friend of many years - someone I have known since we were in our mid-teens and used to speak to on the phone for hours a night, and were so close we would fall asleep holding hands. In January, her mother, someone I knew well, was killed in an accident. She was only 63, and Vicky was an only child. She's moved home to live with her stepdad for a while, so he's not by himself.

They're both absolutely devastated.

This article from a local newspaper explains what happened. I hope the man responsible is stabbed in the throat with a sharpened toothbrush, in prison.

A HORSE rider was killed after being hit by a van while she was out on a morning ride.

Jane Mitchinson, 63, of The Close, Brentwood, was on her horse with a friend in Ashwells Road, Pilgrim Hatch, when a white Toyota van collided with them at 9.50am on Sunday.

Ms Mitchinson, who was secretary of the Brentwood and District Talking Newspaper, was thrown from her horse into a nearby ditch by the collision.

Roads had to closed in the area while rescue services attended the scene but despite their best efforts, paramedics and a doctor from Essex Air Ambulance pronounced Ms Mitchinson dead at the scene.

Along with the inuries sustained by the fall, Ms Mitchinson also suffered a cardiac arrest which was believed to have been caused from chest injuries from the incident.

The other rider, a Brentwood man, was thrown off his saddle and treated by paramedics at the scene and taken to Queens Hospital, in Romford, with minor injuries.

Both horses were also flung into the ditch with one dying at the scene while the other had to be put down later on because of it’s injuries.

The 51-year-old driver of the van was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and has been released on bail until March 19 while enquiries continue.

Ms Mitchinson, who also volunteered with the Brentwood University of the Third Age, leaves a partner and a daughter – tributes have poured in to her from members of the Brentwood community.

Cried at Eastenders. TOTALLY did not see that coming.

Not worth watching it anymore.

[SPOILERS IN COMMENTS]

TWNW18 is going to make Jolly Ranchers the saddest candy ever. :(

This funfair, and the accident was literally at the end of the road where I used to live, in London.

I walked past this fair every time it was there (around 4-6 times a year for six and a half years). Jesus.

Talking with Hurley, you get the impression that he’s completely content to play the drums and go home to his Boca Burgers and Alan Moore comics. Joe Trohman, on the other hand, wants to do more. “I do feel left out a lot,” the guitarist says. At 24, he’s the youngest of the Fall Out boys, and he plays the role of kid brother well—splurging on old Nintendo games and $500 Storm Trooper figurines, finding funny YouTube videos for the guys to watch (latest favorite: “Chimpanzee Riding a Segway”). If Fall Out Boy were the Ninja Turtles, Wentz would be Leonardo, Stump would be Donatello, Hurley would be Raphael, and Trohman, all agree, would be Michelangelo—the “party dude.” “Joe is a free spirit,” Stump says. “He’s kind of just off in Joe Land, which is an awesome place to be.”

To hear Trohman tell it, though, Joe Land isn’t always so awesome. “It does get frustrating, not being able to contribute,” Trohman says. “I mean, to be labeled a background guy, someone who’s just along for the ride—it’s hard. I started Fall Out Boy, you know?” He wrote a few songs for the new album, but they were all cut at the last minute. “It’s kind of a bummer, to work so hard and have it come to nothing. I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing anyone, or I’m ungrateful,” he stresses. “Because I’m very happy to be a part of all this. I’m afraid the guys are gonna read this and wish I’d talked to them first—which maybe I should have. But sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m even in the band.”

-- Blender

The next line after Joe's statement is, "Pete Wentz doesn’t Google himself anymore."

On

truefobinglove of the first four comments, mine is the only one which references the fact that Joe feels completely underappreciated and superfluous in his own band.

That poor kid. I just want to hug him, right now. I mean, I always do, and this is generally pretty much the reason - because I've been saying since IOH came out, more or less, that it seemed like consciously or not, he was being pushed out of his own band, and how shitty that must feel.

I just really hate to see people proving the exact point right there.

We saw The Dark Knight, tonight.

All I can really bring myself to say about it, is that before, he was never really dead. Now, it's hit home more than it ever did.

Thirteen years.

Hi everybody. I remember some English class that focused on how to start your writings and I more distinctly remember that I was never too keen on that bit. Plus I have a near infamous penchant for being long-winded. So here I am at a loss for how to jump in and say what I'm thinking. I guess one must really start at the top.

I love the people around me. I do. I'm a space cadet and sometimes I don't say it enough or in the right way but I desperately love the people I surround myself with which extends not just to my friends and family, or people that come to our shows and such, but to other bands. To other musicians with whom I share the common bond of "Hey, I dropped out of/didn't go to college so I could be in some silly band that was likely going to put me in crazy debt and get me dumped by every girlfriend I've ever had..." It's a common language, the way we all start in tiny rooms playing to next to no one (sometimes no one). Or playing to only the other band we're on tour with (I'm looking at you Spitalfield/Fall Out Boy tour 2002). It is because of this common bond that I share with everyone in music that I have to say it's been a bad couple months.

First we were hit with the news of the passing of Donda West whom I never met. Obviously Kanye is a friend of the band's but I don't even know him that well. I do however know him well enough to know he loves his mother dearly. As dearly as anyone's ever loved their mother. And so it was with the weight of that knowledge that her passing hit me hard. Not to mention the shock of her young age. I called my mom that night. I'd advise anyone reading this to do the same.

Next came the truly horrible news of a tragedy I will keep quiet that happened on my own tour. I will respect the effected family by keeping the details private but it hurt some of my closest friends and near brothers profoundly. In turn I am near tears as I write this thinking about precisely what happened.

And now Casey. You know, to be frank I didn't know Casey very well. I have far reaching memories of him in the early days when we played a comic book shop together. We talked hardcore and laughed about Kiss makeup. Then on that tour we did together I remember him being simply genuine, always pleasant, always kind. Now, I'm sure no one needs another arrogant rock star prattling on about how the world done him wrong and all, but I'm pissed that Casey's not here anymore. I'm pissed because I think I took him for granted a little. Pissed at myself. Cause every band we've had the luxury of touring with I'd say with maybe one or two exceptions, are all people I've really liked and if you don't ever tell those people it can be too late.

It's the same way I felt when the late John Holohan passed away. It's horrible. I remember the phone call. I remember calling Jack to ask if it were true and I needn't have on account of his voice. We were at a photo shoot and every time I see one of those photos and have to autograph it or some such blasphemous thing I feel horrible just thinking about the sound in Jack's voice.

Then last night another friend of mine came to me with the news that his father had had a stroke. I did not press to learn if he is expected to make it. That was really irrelevant to how I should feel...my friend was in obviously pain and that was all I needed to know.

Anyway, I'm still rambling. This is why I've never had any kind of blog...I'd never have time to write what I was thinking and I wasn't gifted with conciseness. I guess I'm just trying to say that all the people I've talked about will be horribly missed. And that I want to let everyone know, even the people that hate my band and say mean things every time someone leaks some ridiculously fake scandal and slaps my best friend's name on it, we are all doing this little thing called music. That makes us family, however dysfunctional. Don't take your friends for granted and hug your loved ones every chance you get.

-Patrick Stump

[source]

---I love this kid to pieces. He's always struck me as one of the nicest people in music (or certainly within the genres I listen to) and actually, I really wish he did have a blog because what he thinks he lacks in eloquence he more than makes up for in sincerity.

I was never really familiar with Hawthorne Heights, but I couldn't get my head around the concept of someone just barely older than me being gone like that, with no sufficient explanation. It's times like this that you really begin to understand your own mortality, and even if that doesn't faze you, realise the mortality of the people closest to you.

Eight years ago, a kid I was in the Air Training Corps with, who also happened to go to my college, was hit my a motorbike; he died in hospital two days later. Unfortunately, I didn't find out until a fortnight after that, when a colleague asked a girl from a neighbouring shop why we had seen her crying - she told us her friend Bob Salkheld had died and showed us a local newspaper. Bob wasn't the kind of guy I'd hang out with on weekends - but we'd known each other for four years by that point, spent weekends running around in combat gear in the dark or flying small aircraft over Berkshire, and although I'd since left the Corps, we still saw each other around. The last time I'd seen him was jumping on him and yelling, "BOOOOOB!" at the train station outside our college.

What I couldn't fathom was how the world could just carry one with someone missing from it.

I was seventeen at the time; sixth months, and then one year later, I lost two other friends - one to suicide and one to DVT.

It's cliche, I know, but REM got it down: hold on to your friends. You never know how long you'll have them for and you'll never realise how much they mean to you until they're not there any more.

I do love you guys - or, most of you - and I hope you know that. I'm pretty sure the majority of you do, even when I'm not commenting in your journals all the time. It takes more than that to hold a friendship together, right? ♥

Stay safe. Please.

(Big hugs and much love to the families and friends of all the people Patrick mentioned - I'm so, so sorry.)

I'm not posting this so we can all point and laugh, because for once, aside from all the bravado, this proves that he's a human being just like everyone else. Watching this made me cry.

*cuddles* I'm sorry, K.

I don't fancy Pete Wentz. Not a jot. But there are times when I just think he's so fucking beautiful I could cry.

This is one of them.

He looks so desolate. I want to draw him. I wish I had time.

( Fuck it. He's a ten minute sketch, on lined paper, in biro, capture on a digital camera in poor lighting... )

Julie and I just watched Sunday.

I have no words to express how devastated I feel.

Stargate: Atlantis is over for me.

They ruined everything.

I think we knew it was coming, but it doesn’t make it any less gutting…

The core brief came round this morning, and Teh Pretteh is listed on it as a leaver in September. I think that's when his sick leave started.

I'm dead upset. He was so sweet and lovely and hoping that I'd get to bump into him, or that I'd find out he was back, was pretty much my motivation for turning up at work every day. Now I'm never going to see him again.

:*(

I'm going to miss him, even though we never really had a chance to get to know each other, really. Someone said to me, "You wouldn't have had a reaction like that when you first saw him if it didn't mean something". Yes. It meant I was going to be disappointed again. AGAIN.

When I first saw him it was literally like, "WOAH." He was so pretty, so exactly my 'type'… everyone liked him... and then there was the whole elbow frottage thing and the dorky 'OMGNOWIFEELSTUPID' grins when we were at the retirement presentation… I feel cheated.

I don't have much of an appetite, now, but I bought some chocolate anyway.

Just feel like crying, really.

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This Is Not A Democracy

Entries tagged with sad

Arrivederci, caro mio.

:(

For Whom the Belle tolls

Sad news.

Sad sad

Aw...

More bad news.

Sadface.

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...like kisses on the necks of just/best friends...

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Gone.

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