Easter is upon us and the dates coincide

My mother died in 2002 on Maudy Thursday. I did not get to see her before she died, being busy with work and making a decision based on the information I was given, for it was the last day of term, and with that came consequences for taking it off. I have over the years had times of feeling guilt and times of regret, alongside the times of grief. Yet, when we make these decisions we make them with the best information we know at the time, and have to accept them.
My brother is the one who confirmed for me what I had felt, that the days of Easter this year coincided with the days that Easter when Mum died. So Easter Saturday was the day of her funeral, we had the blessing of a friend of mine carrying out the service, and a friend of my brother in law being an undertaker. As she had died in hospital there was no need for a coroners court hearing and so no delay required. A private ceremony, with some moments of inadvertent humour was had, she wanted a private ceremony. Some of her friends were hurt by the fact that she had not wanted them to farewell her, but when her ashes were put in the ground at the memorial garden at the church she was attending, they got to join us there. It was lovely to see how they wanted to say farewell.
Who then are the funerals for - the person who has died or the living?  I think they are for the living to give them time to say farewell and to comfort each other. Many different stories of the person can come out during the time spent talking outside the funeral, because each persons experience of another if different.
What has it been like, 11 years later to have the dates come around. Interesting. Time has moved on, and my memory of my mother has faded a bit. I remember a woman who loved to laugh, and who was talented in cooking and sewing, but would never or rarely finish a knitting project. I remember a woman who loved reading and who could budget really well. An elegant woman who provided me with love, and who was proud that all three of her children went to uni, and glad that one followed her interest in science. A woman who had back problems, but whose vivacity added to the life of parties, and to the group of friends she had.

How can we keep running faster around the hamster wheel?

Workplaces seem to be getting to the days of requiring workers to complete more work than is physically possible. When will we realise that there is a limit to how much work people can actually complete. Also how much consideration goes into the balance of adding in that next task with regards the benefits, and affect on load of the workers.
It would seem that our world is getting more and more driven by profit gains. When will the ethics of cutting staff to increase profits, but hurting the health of the workers left be taken into consideration. More so when will the lack of ethics of the CEO salaries growing disproportionally to those of the workers be taken into consideration? I suspect the answer to that is never - for the world has increased in greed.
I realise that some of what I write comes from being in the position of being a worker, but that in other cases I do not understand the pressure on CEO's. Yet I do believe it would be best if their packages were tied to being a certain multiple of the lowest workers salary/wage, so that when they gave themselves a pay rise via the board, every worker in the company also obtained a pay rise. Perhaps a company could agree to only rising each year by the CPI plus.... or some other indicators, so that the position on the scale of life is maintained instead of decreasing.
Still there is a problem with the obscene salaries that many CEO's are paid, when they can receive bonuses even when the company makes a loss.

Unforgettable books

I visited the doctor today, and as always we got to talking about the books we have been reading/listening to. There are now two books that I keep on telling people to read, one is The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. This book I keep on recommending, with the words "It is a most awful book, with horrible scenes in it, but well worth reading." Why would I recommend a book that I use that sentence with? Due to the different perspective it gives, and the explanations of behaviour and understanding of how people can be so horrible, and the effect on them. The book is presented as a memoir of a German officers experiences in the war. He seems to be undergoing a long mental breakdown during the book, but it takes you through various theatres of the war, with the SS, and showing the killing carried out of civilian populations, and Jews. I read it a year and a quarter ago, and it still has me thinking back to it.
The second book is translated from Swedish and brings a smile to my face thinking about it. It is the opposite of the first one, a farcical book in some of the events through it, but written with such good humour that I laughed a lot through it. My husband did not laugh as much as he read it, but he also enjoyed it. The title: "The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared." by Jonas Jonasson. It was such a stupid story, but that was what made it so enjoyable, for the way it was constructed kept me reading. In fact I read it over one weekend, which for me is unusual.
So two books that are staying with me, one that was horrid and the other which was enjoyable and lifted my mood.

Jottings from a sore leg

Having been very proud of the fact that I had managed to maintain my balance under circumstances I had seen others fall over with, last Monday I managed to trip up on cords. I went down really really heavily on my right leg. It was not nice at all, and has had two flow on effects. Lots of bruises on my leg, and some more coming out as the week flows forward. The worst side of it was development of cellulitus in part of my lower leg, so a visit to the hospital emergency. Very nice emergency clerk let me know how lucky we were we got there then, as they had had a very hectic early evening.
That led to me not being at school on one of the days I needed to be, but I had the chance to get to be on line and in communication with two students who asked me questions. This is a new development, have sick leave, but be able to have some communication. In my case I did not feel sick, had the leg up as the doctor asked, and so could take the step of making use of the internet to keep in touch with the students.
Now I am thinking about how much this can change requirements for sick leave. Work has already changed so much that we need to have internet access each weekend and week nights so that if we are emailed questions seeking help we can answer them. Once we got our weekends free. This is bad.
This means that the blurring between work and play is greater. Mobile phones give the employer to be in touch with the worker outside work hours. Do we need to specify times of non contact? Or do we accept 24 hour day contact?