(no subject)

So I'm back home. And I still don't know the results of my exams. And as usual, I'm stuck here with my head full of thoughts and lots of things to do and don't get anything done. Oh well.

Yesterday we visited my godfather's wife. And my godfather's grave. He was my mother's youngest brother and died on December 22nd, 2002, at night, on the highway between the place he worked and the place he lived. He was 42 then. He left Karin and 5 sons. Well, only three are actually his, but that doesn't change much. He worked in a bookstore, and much of my love for reading and fantasy I owe to him. My shelves are full of books that he gave to me- Harry Potter, the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Circle of the Dawn, the Gorin no Sho, and last but not least, the Lord of the Rings. Probably most of my geekdom goes on his account. He was my absolute favorite out of all the relatives I have, and now he's gone, and it just isn't fair, not because of me only, but because of everything. His youngest son has just turned one.

Now my mom has started to write down everything she remembers about him and copies his diaries so his sons can some day learn the things about their father that he can't tell them. And the more she writes, the more I see how little I knew him. He told me so much but there's so much more hidden.
She is working the diaries from his student days. As I am now, he was a student at the University of Cologne. His diaries are full of the thoughts that I find myself thinking now, about Cologne, about the university, about life, the universe and everything. It hurts that I never could talk to him about it all. I never knew.
He wrote poetry, short stories, he drew pictures, he travelled. I never knew. Why do I only get to know it now, now he's gone? Why did this have to happen?

Eru. This is really hard to write.

So what do I learn from this? Talk more with my parents about what they remember from the time when they were my age. Tell them more about how I feel and what I experience. If for nothing else, just for the sake of not making the mistake I did with Christoph, whom I loved so much but whom I told so little, and now he's gone forever.
I'm not alone. I may think my thoughts are so utterly weird that no one shares them, but obviously that just isn't true. And I have to go on, and just be myself, and make my mistake and have my successes, because that's what every page of his diary shouts out to me, because that is what he shouted out to me when I had problems in school or with my parents. He always knew, somehow. Only now do I realize how much he helped me, and how much I am going to miss him. Why didn't I see it earlier? Why was I so damn self-obsessed that I didn't ask more questions, that I didn't share some more of myself like he shared everything? Why do I have the feeling that somehow it's my fault?

In Otherland, Martine says something like that loving someone is like giving a hostage to Fate. It's true. And it hurts.

He loved to live so much. He loved his family so much. He loved books and fantasy and art and the world. He was so curious. Now he solved the one last puzzle, I suppose: What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. What happens after death.

I miss him. This is incredibly cheesy, I know, but I miss him and I always will.

Death. Moving on. Questions. Why do I usually have to find out the hard way how much people mean to me? I really have to pay more attention, spend less time in my dreamworlds, or one day I'll realize I didn't even know myself. And then again it'll be to late to find out.

Live. He loved life and so will I. Some new resolve. No more of that "This world hates me" shit. No more of that "Why me" shit.

Yeah right.

But it's worth a try.