#my grandmother passed away in 2006
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my baba’s one and only instagram post is dedicated to his childhood home in Narendra, Dhaka. His caption is a paragraph, written in Bangla of course, about his memories in that home and what it was like growing up there. He ended his caption with, “my childhood home where my mother loved me and sang songs to me!!!!!” I can’t help but shed tears lol I guess all everyone really wants is their mother’s touch and love…even my 60 year old father who has an extremely hard time expressing his emotions. All he wants is to hug his mother again.
#personal#my grandmother passed away in 2006#my dad didnt get to see her in her last moments and i think that haunts him everyday#he went to her funeral in bd of course but i think he’s never gotten over the loss of his mother. he was her first born#my dad doesnt talk about his emotions at all and has a hard time bonding w us but i know he loves us#im crying bc i want him to know that he’s not alone but i dont know how to
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'Moviegoers turned out in droves this weekend for writer-director Christopher Nolan's new film Oppenheimer, fueling an expectations-shattering domestic box office debut of $80 million. The three-hour-long biopic recounts the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the theoretical physicist widely known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” and has been praised by critics for its nuanced examination of a complicated historical figure.
The movie is based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2006 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of numerous accounts of Oppenheimer's life and legacy. But according to Oppenheimer's grandson, Charles Oppenheimer, the famous physicist's family has their own their own approach to depictions of him and additional nuance to include.
Charles was born near Santa Fe, N.M., in April 1975, after both his grandfather and grandmother, Katherine "Kitty" Puening Oppenheimer (played by Emily Blunt), had passed away. However, he says he grew up having a very open dialogue about his grandfather's work with his father, Peter Oppenheimer, who spent several years of his early childhood at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.
TIME spoke with Charles about what Oppenheimer gets right about his grandfather, what he would have changed, and the work he's doing to further Oppenheimer's legacy today.
TIME: How was your grandparents' story told to you when you were growing up?
Charles Oppenheimer: Like most kids, I heard about my grandparents through my parents, and there was a marker at one point that stands out in my memory of speaking about Robert Oppenheimer being a famous person who had done his duty during World War II. He might have been a soldier, but his skills were in science, so he used science to do what he had to do during the war. But within the family, we had very open conversations. So my dad was always there if I had a question once I started hearing more about how we were related to a person that other people were talking about. I was always able to initiate a conversation and I do that to this day, especially with my father Peter.
So there was ongoing, open communication about who your grandfather was.
With a very big dividing line. Within the family, we absolutely talked about it as much as possible. With anyone outside of the family, my father doesn't discuss anything [about him] if he can avoid it.
Do you feel there are misconceptions about your grandfather?
There's such an incredible historical record of him. It's impressive, like every detail of every conversation of his spring break in 1924 is analyzed. If you have that much information and enough people writing and rewriting and interpreting, you can pick up any thread of meaning and narrative. The one that's developing right now is about as positive and as famous of an interpretation of him as you could have. And I find that being related to him and having insight into who he was doesn't always seem that interesting to other people. They're happy to ask a historian or a writer, and it's not necessarily true that my impression of his values is taken as the answer. So I kind of struggle with saying that I have a view of who he is and what he cared about and it not always getting across. That being said, I think with as much attention as is put on him, there is a large understanding of the complexity of the stuff he dealt with and the problems and opportunities of ushering science into the world.
You saw the movie. Were there parts that hit you the hardest, emotionally?
I was bracing myself for not feeling great about it, even though I talked to Chris Nolan and was very impressed by him. I saw him work on the set with an amazing intensity when I visited once or twice, and we had a great conversation. But I didn't know, am I going to love it? Am I going to hate it? I often have that reaction to biographies and pundits when they talk about my grandfather. I feel like they're missing something. And sometimes it really feels personal. Like when somebody wants to start a fight with you on the schoolyard, they'll talk about your family member. But during the movie, I found myself accepting and liking it. I thought it told a compelling story and I could just take it as art that was really engaging. I was really happy to have that reaction. I didn't expect it.
Were there parts that struck you as historically or emotionally inaccurate?
When I talked to Chris Nolan, at one point he said something roughly like, 'I know how to tell a story out of this subject. There are going to be parts that you have to dramatize a bit and parts that are changed. As family members, I think you're going to like some parts and dislike some parts.' That's probably led into my acceptance of the movie, even though I saw it very late, just when it came out. As a dramatized representation of the history, it was really largely accurate. There are parts that I disagree with, but not really because of Nolan.
The part I like the least is this poison apple reference, which was a problem in American Prometheus. If you read American Prometheus carefully enough, the authors say, 'We don't really know if it happened.' There's no record of him trying to kill somebody. That's a really serious accusation and it's historical revision. There's not a single enemy or friend of Robert Oppenheimer who heard that during his life and considered it to be true. American Prometheus got it from some references talking about a spring break trip, and all the original reporters of that story—there was only two maybe three—reported that they didn't know what Robert Oppenheimer was talking about. Unfortunately, American Prometheus summarizes that as Robert Oppenheimer tried to kill his teacher and then they [acknowledge that] maybe there's this doubt.
Sometimes facts get dragged through a game of telephone. In the movie, it's treated vaguely and you don't really know what's going on unless you know this incredibly deep backstory. So it honestly didn't bother me. It bothers me that it was in the biography with that emphasis, not a disclaimer of, this is an unsubstantiated rumor that we want to put in our book to make it interesting. But I like some of the dramatization. I thought Einstein's conversation with Oppenheimer at the end was really effective even though it wasn't historical.
What was your role, if any, in the movie?
The family policy around media, books, and what I'd call the cult of Oppenheimer, is not to participate in it. It's a business to write and talk about Oppenheimer, and the model that my dad chose is: 'It's not very classy, and I'm not going to be involved in publicly representing Oppenheimer in ways that other people do as a business.' But when I saw this movie was coming out, I said, 'Wow, that's going to be really big.' I also have a big interest in representing my grandfather's values for today's world. That's the most important thing in my opinion. So I reached out said, 'Hey, could I get involved?', and Chris Nolan was nice enough to give me a courtesy call through Kai Bird—whose book I just criticized. I do think American Prometheus is really good, I just had a complaint about that one part.
So Chris Nolan gave me a call. He had finished the script and he said, 'I have so much material with American Prometheus.' I explained that my dad probably would be unlikely to talk. But I don't think he needed input from the family. And as an artist, he obviously has every right to do that. You need art to tell this story. And it's just a fact that when somebody writes a biography about our family, we don't have input or the ability to make decisions. The chain of this movie was American Prometheus was published and then Nolan licensed it. I tried to give my perspective, but there wasn't any official involvement.
Is there anything you would have advised them to do differently, had you been asked?
I definitely would have removed the apple thing. But I can't imagine myself giving advice about movie stuff to Nolan. He's an expert, he's the artist, and he's a genius in this area. But one amusing family story is that, if I invited myself to the set, they would entertain me coming, which I did twice. And so one time I visited the set in New Mexico. I saw them film and, in that particular scene, Cillian Murphy walks into a room and part of his line was calling someone an 'asshole.' And when I went back to Santa Fe and told my dad, he was horrified. He said, 'Robert Oppenheimer never swore. He was such a formal person. He would never, ever do that.' And I was like, 'Well, it's a dramatization.' But I was worried that in the movie he would be this swearing, abusive guy. Anyway, I think he said one swear word in the movie and I just happened to be in the room. So there is a chance that if we had been consultants, we could have added some details and depth. But there's such a complete record. It was enough for Nolan to tell the story he intended to.
Did the movie help you come to any kind of deeper understanding of your grandfather?
When I saw how Nolan put this together, I was like, wow, there are thousands of pages of more details than what he put in there. But he was able to summarize it to the effect of: are we going to destroy ourselves as a species? That told as a story is really important. It's not exactly a revelation, but it's an important message. I always look at my grandfather's actual words instead of what other people said about him. And I think his advice is really relevant today, because he was right about how to manage atomic energy. If we had followed his actual hard policy proposals, we could have avoided an arms race right after World War II.
Robert Oppenheimer saw where we should go and he was right at that time. That really counts for a lot. It's not just the fact of like, ‘Oh, I regret something I did.' He put in effort to affect policy that could have literally changed history, and being overruled and discredited, which is what Nolan tells the story of, is important in that light. The way he told this story through [Lewis] Strauss’ perspective was really masterful.
There have always been two facts in tension: on the one hand, Oppenheimer helped create a weapon of mass destruction that was used to kill hundreds of thousands of people. On the other hand, the existence of nuclear weapons has succeeded as a deterrent for nearly 80 years, with superpowers like the U.S., Russia, and China avoiding war for fear of what would happen if those weapons again got into play. What are your thoughts on that complex legacy?
To me, that's the most interesting part and the most relevant today. The movie, while really good, had less emphasis than I would have put on the period of 1945 right before the bomb dropped to 1947, which was the time where we could have avoided an arms race. It is true that he ushered these weapons in, and then we went into an arms race, and we haven't destroyed ourselves. But the difference is him and [Niels] Bohr saw the arms race coming and said, ‘We really must avoid this.' It's not good enough that we just haven't died yet. It was a disaster that we got into an arms race and it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of science, as illustrated in the scene they have in there with Truman where Oppenheimer had been telling people that if we don't co-manage this with our allies, which were the U.K. and Russia at the time, we're going to get into an arms race and it's going to be extremely dangerous.
The gut reaction from Truman and others was, let's just make as many of these bombs as fast as possible and we'll keep it secret and the Russians will never get the bomb. So you have a scientific expert that's telling the government, this is what we need to do, and you have the government doing the opposite. We got into an arms race not because of a hard-nosed, pragmatic understanding of we need to build these bombs, but a scientific misunderstanding that we could keep it secret. Robert Oppenheimer's deepest message is that the world had changed around the atomic bomb dropping. But it wasn't just atomic bombs, it was the fact that the scope of our technologies had increased to the point where we could destroy ourselves and we had to unite in a new way. And that's exactly what he said: Mankind must unite or we will perish. That's the message that we can bring into today's world.
You started the Oppenheimer Project to continue your grandfather's work today. Can you tell me a little bit about what the organization does?
Even though I spent a lot of time in this interview trying to correct some historical detail, you never win that discussion. But if you look at Robert Oppenheimer's values, what he wrote, what he said, how he led scientists, it’s clearly an amazing record. He led scientists to solve a hugely difficult technical problem under the threat of existential risk. And then he talked about, how do we manage the outcome of improving science and technology at that speed? He had a poetic way of talking. So when he spoke about what should we do about it, it wasn't just an engineered answer. He had a really deep, rounded view of it because of his education and interest. And what he said was, we need to unite in a new way—and his policy tried to put that in place.
It's exactly what we need to do today in the world. We can draw dots between the idea that if we hadn't gone into an arms race, we would have actually been able to use that scientific discovery for abundant nuclear energy. The same science could have made unlimited energy. We had a little bit of a push there of making it, but we were making bombs constantly at the same time, and that eventually sabotaged the public acceptance of nuclear energy. Now, we've gotten carbon output and climate change. So if we could use the idea of ushering in technology in an industrial scale effort to affect a really threatening problem, like climate change and lack of enough energy, we could apply the same type of effort that we had in the Manhattan Project towards today's problems. And it wouldn’t include creating a bunch of bombs, because that method of warfare stopped working in 1945. It doesn't work. Our institutions haven't caught up with that insight.'
#Charles Oppenheimer#Peter Oppenheimer#Oppenheimer#Christopher Nolan#Cillian Murphy#American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer#Kai Bird#Martin J. Sherwin#Katherine “Kitty” Puening Oppenheimer#Emily Blunt#Los Alamos#The Manhattan Project#The Oppenheimer Project
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Headliner of the Month
Hello, Carnival Goers and Performers alike. Please give a round of applause for our Headliner of the Month:
Our Wonderful Performer: Satvrn @herecomesjoon
You are our Headliner of the Month! During this month, we want to showcase your incredible talent and skill and share it with the Carnival! For this month, we want you to pick three fics of yours that you’d like us to showcase, and we also wanted to ask you some questions so we can understand how you write, why and what you want to get across with your fics.
All questions are answered based on these three fics. Please read and give them some love!
A Year Of Sunshine
Summary: You had always talked about being parents, but you didn’t imagine it would happen like this.
Pairing: Jungkook x Reader
Rating: 16+
A Brand New Day
Summary: Moving away from home is terrifying, especially away from family. A lot can go wrong. But when you move cross country and start your first year of college, you learn that making your own family where you are is what will help you through the next several years.
Pairing: Jungkook x Reader x Jimin x Reader x Hoseok
Rating: 16+
Light Jar
Summary: You grew up with him, and fell in love with him, knowing in your heart that he would never feel the same. An escape to college brought you stability, and you were able to set aside your adolescent feelings. When Namjoon showed up at your college coffee shop, you realized that those feelings never went away.
Pairing: Namjoon x Reader
Rating: 18+
When did you start writing fics, and why?
I started writing BTS Fanfic specifically in December of 2021. Dec. 11th is the one year anniversary for my first fic in the fandom. Overall though, man I think I published something when I was 16 or 17, so 2006 or 2007. But I’ve been writing in general as a way to explore the ideas and feelings I’ve had but had never had the courage or energy to explore. My introduction to ARMY was one that was pleasant and safe, and so after several months of just watching from the sidelines. Liking fic after reading them and reblogging visual content, I took the plunge. I started writing Light Jar first, but Switch ended up being the first published. Which looking back was the better call. I feel like if I had forced myself into completing Light Jar first, the final chapter wouldn’t have been as cathartic as it was for me.
I think fanfic in general is a safe space for people to explore themselves. To indulge in ideas and fantasies that they can’t otherwise. And along the same lines, play by post roleplay is similar. Being able to put yourself into someone else’s shoes lets you think about these things.
What was your first fic? (provide a link if you want?)
First published BTS fic, Switch.
What is your latest fic? I’ve written several drabbles, but full length oneshot, A Year Of Sunshine
Fic Specific Questions
Why did you choose to write about the fics you have chosen?
AYOS was started as an exploration in grief and mourning at a time that I really hadn’t experienced that. Outside of my grandmothers passing back in 2015, all of my family are still around, though I still miss my Grandma every day.
Sadly, the passing of my husband in September 2022 changed that. However, I’m glad that I had this fic as a way to comfort myself. A gentle reminder to lean on the people that were still around me, and that with time comes healing. In that way, AYOS has quickly become my favorite thing I’ve written.
Light Jar was a love letter to my roots in role play and my younger self. The plots and relationships that me and my friends would build together were wild and dramatic. The knowing looks from your friends, and the exasperation when two people you care about are so obviously in love. In a way too, this mirrored my own relationship with my husband, which at its core, was a solid friendship.
A Brand New Day was originally going to be a one-shot and it quickly grew out of hand. I wanted to write a ‘I fell for my grumpy neighbor’ fic that quickly got bigger than it should have been. It’s still incomplete due to life happening, but it still is one of the fics that I am most proud of. Because I did start writing this earlier in 2022, and while I was still figuring out how I wanted to approach writing fanfic, I decided to have a named reader. I think if I could go back and start again, I would just have Charlie be an OC and I should have written in the more familiar and comfortable third person.
One of the things that I like about this fic too is that although it is written from Charlie's perspective, I still found ways to show the relationships between the guys as well. I know that Member x Member fic aren’t the most popular, at least here on tumblr, but the desire to share and tell queer stories is important to me. I wanted it to be clear that all of the guys had a relationship before Charlie, and her being added into the mix didn’t suddenly change the dynamic that they had before. It felt dishonest I guess, to have Hobi, or JK say that suddenly, they didn’t want to continue their relationships with each other all because some girl came along. And more importantly, that she wasn’t needed to make whatever they had whole.
As it were, I still really love this fic because it was a comforting message of leaning into your own feelings and letting them just exist without overwhelming. I still have a lot of plans for Charlie and the guys, so I can’t wait to share those with everyone
What was the most memorable line for you in each of the fics?
A Year of Sunshine
“NO! IT’S NOT READY!” She came running out of the closet, half dressed in one of her nice dresses and sparkly leggings.
“What’s not ready?” You noticed that she had pulled out the Army Bombs that you had gifted her over the years and used hair ties and scarves to attach them to some of the squishmallows.
“My concert isn’t ready!” She shouted at you again and pushed you back towards the door and out into the hallway.
Light Jar
You still could hardly believe it, and you touched the tips of your fingers delicately to your lips, still able to feel the way he melted into you. It felt right, like he was the missing piece to the puzzle of your life, and you could hold it in your hands, seeing how the contours of him would fit so snugly and seamlessly. The only thing to do now was to press him into place, right where he belonged with you.
What was your writing process like for each fic?
I start most of my fics with a very specific feeling in mind, usually accompanied by a little scene. I remember early on in writing ABND there was a scene with Jimin, Jungkook and Charlie that was such a clear picture in my mind. I actually wrote it before I started the first chapter of that fic. And then as a sort of test for the idea, I did write Something Borrowed, which is a glimpse of Charlie deep into her relationship with the guys and really coming into her own. I could see so clearly in my mind how she and Namjoon would start dating.
All of these moods and vignettes sort of become the center of the fic and I build around them. I ask myself, how do we get to this point? What has to happen in order for these feelings and events to make sense? And what happens after? Are these characters where I want them to be by the time this scene happens, and if not, how do they proceed?
What do you hope readers will take away from the fics?
The biggest thing I hope people get is just a sense of comfort. I also hope that I can trigger some sort of memory or feeling, especially when I describe places or the quiet moments between two people.
Why do you keep writing? What drives you?
My need to create. I had a 7 year dry spell, and when I was finally finding joy in writing again, I just could not stop. Ultimately, I create for myself. I write the stories that I want to read. Having other people read them and enjoy them is a bonus.
Any writing goals you’ve recently hit? Any goals that you are planning to hit?
It’s already been a year since I published my first fic in this fandom. In that year, I have published a little over 88 thousand words. If you take into account all of the WIP stuff, I have over 100k. I know it’s not a competition, and no award is waiting for me for accomplishing this, but I am still proud of myself. Each word that I’ve written is proof that I still have things to say. Still have things that I want to explore and share. I hope in the next year, I can maybe have part two of the Seven Ways To Love series. Who knows, maybe I can double that yearly word count.
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A month ago today, my cat Billy passed on. I keep putting writing this off because there was just so much to do for spring and summer now that my father is in the hospital. Their house still feels a little empty without the dog and the cat. Just one cat left now, Casper. Click the read-more if you want to see photos of him and some of our other pets.
Billy first came to their house when I was visiting Amherst to find housing and to meet my grandmother, Summer 2010. My parents told our neighbour that we had 1 gray cat - named Smoky - and she called me and said that now we have 2 gray cats. When we got back, we searched the backyard for him for a while without success until finally he came out of a rosebush - maybe he was napping - and immediately ran up to my mother, meowing for attention. My mother thought he was so cute. We weren't sure if he was a stray or abandoned, and he had no collar but looked healthy. I checked him for fleas before letting him follow us inside, and he just let me comb him over until he got bored and ran in. My father thought that he was about 10 months old, probably left behind by someone living in a nearby street. I moved to Amherst a month later, so I didn't spend a lot of time with him until more recent years.
This is the earliest photo I have of him, from 2012.
I miss that orange cat, Chester, a lot too. Billy and Chester mostly got along. Chester was already around 10 or 11 when Billy started living here. Chester was well-behaved and a badass adventurous alpha cat, so Billy definitely learned some of Chester's better behaviours over the 5 years that they lived in the house together, including staying out on the porch all night. Billy probably learned the best spots to catch rats from him. When Chester passed on that 2 September in 2015, Billy became the new chief rattenfaenger (Smoky was never much for catching rats). I regret that we never adopted a younger cat or a kitten for Billy to pass on his unique set of behaviours, and it especially stings because he was such an incredibly good cat.
I named him Billy after a friend came over and I asked him if he wanted to help name this cat, since he had helped me pick the name Chester for our new orange cat, back in 2006. He felt that Billy was a friendly name for a friendly cat. Sadly, Billy experienced a rapid deterioration starting in December 2022, becoming noticeable only by the end of December & early January. He went to the vet and recovered for a few months, but ultimately complications from a stroke did him in. After the stroke on 22 April, his recovery stopped and his condition declined quickly. He was so tired and frail at the end. But I cherish his memory, so I'm not going to remember my cat that way.
Billy was mostly friendly with Riley, my brother's dog, and most of the cats in the neighbourhood too. Riley passed in February of this year. Both of them were 14 years old. I tried so hard to keep him alive for the first 5 months of 2023.. but his little body just couldn't take it anymore. So he passed at 09h50, 09 May, 2023. He passed in the backyard, with me by his side.. I had already scheduled his at-home euthanasia for Wednesday. But he didn't even last long enough to reach the vet clinic 2 miles away. Maybe it was selfish of me to think on Monday that I could just have 48 more hours with him. Maybe it was foolish of me to try at all. But I had to. He was a great cat. A great cat is worth fighting for. It's the least we can do to reward him for all the rats he caught over his life. It's been a month and I still miss him. He was with us for 13 years, yet it wasn't enough. All I wanted was for him to survive to the end of summer, because that's a cat's favourite time of year... alas, it was not meant to be.
Even in his old age, Billy preferred to stay outdoors. He was an incredible hunter, primarily of rats, mice, voles, and other small rodents. He definitely caught his share of birds and lizards, but thankfully those weren't his primary targets because there were just so many rats. I estimate that he caught, on average for 10 years, 5 rodents per week. There were many nights that I saw him catch 3 rats in a single evening & night; even ~7 where he caught 5 in a single night. My parents definitely would not have been able to grow a garden or keep the tortoise safe from predation by rats without Billy & Chester staying out most of every evening catching rats. Both of them had outdoor shelters too, or sometimes used the dog's old house. Billy & Chester were both incredible cats. Truly my family has been fortunate to have such wonderful fuzzy creatures.
Billy learned to sit in a chair to eat from Chester, and all the cats since have been doing it. I wish we had more early photos of him, but hard drive space was at a premium. 80% of the 236 photos & videos are from the last 3 years. At some point around 2020, he also learned that he could get attention and better food by banging on the pan, or by tipping over (empty) cups.
Casper, the white cat, came to the neighbourhood some time around ~2013, possibly from our neighbour 2 houses down, already approximately 2 years old. My father was feeding him outside, and he started coming inside and living with us starting in 2019. Billy wasn't exactly fond of him, but they did get close sometimes. He sometiems would steal Casper's dinner. Casper actually came up to cuddle Billy one night when he was sick. Billy also got along with the tortoises too, never really bothering them except for a few sniffs sometimes. Mrs. Slowski liked to try hiding in his fur sometimes when he was asleep, which always scared him. Now that Billy is gone, Casper is the king. The King is dead; All hail the King.
This is the final truly good healthy photo I have of him, from 24 March. I think the only thing keeping him going in the end was love - for me, for my parents, and for this house & neighbourhood. He wanted to stay with us as long as he could because he loved us. And I felt that I had to grant him as much time as possible, because it would be dishonourable to take time away from his life which is so precious to us when he so clearly wanted to stay.
I wish I could tell his original owners - an air force family who received orders to move to somewhere, Colorado, I think - that we loved him so much, that he brought so much joy to this house every day. Right up to the end. I wish I could tell them that when I came home on his Sunday evening, he still tried to run to the car to greet me. I wish I could tell them that he purred and that the sun was shining and the breeze was nice and that Casper and Mrs. Slowski were both there for him during his final moments. And so was I.
Adieu, Billy. I keep telling myself that you're still with me, just in another form. I keep pouring out my spent incense onto your grave, which is near Chester and Riley's graves. You are at peace now. Perhaps I will put together a combination of incenses that I feel represents your memory. I think it would be an eclectic combination of rose, pineapple sage, black pepper, and minty\piney frankincense.
Now, all that's left are his memories, his photos, his impact.. and his love.
If you're reading this, because I want you to depart with thoughts of happier times, here is a short video of Billy slowly sanding me while I scratch his belly - his favourite activity in the world.
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“I Am YEG Arts” Series: Frances Whitford
It’s been said that grandparents are the voices of the past and the door to the future. For Frances Whitford, there are few truer sentiments. It’s why she describes her business, Beadwork & Bannock, as a creation of love and legacy to her grandparents and Métis culture. Lucky for us, that gratitude and knowledge are both gifts she’s eager to share with everyone. From passing down traditions to her children to championing the Indigenous Artists Market Collective (I.A.M), Frances looks forward to continuing to promote and support the perseverance of Indigenous art and culture in our city. Artist, advocate, granddaughter, and teacher—this week’s “I Am YEG Arts” story belongs to Frances Whitford.
Tell us about your connection to Edmonton and why you’ve made it your home.
I have a lot of family here. I’m from northeastern Alberta, just outside of Fort McMurray, so Edmonton was the closest major city and our go-to for everything—so we’ve always been connected to it. Even as a kid, we’d go to Lac Ste. Anne every summer, and then to K-Days because my grandmother had sisters and family here. From there we’d go around to Lac La Biche to the powwow before heading back home. So ever since I was a small child, I’ve spent a few weeks of every single summer here.
As an adult, what really drew me to Edmonton were the opportunities for my three children to grow. Being in a small community is great—the support you have is good, everyone knows your name, and your history, and all of those types of things—but sometimes that can put a real damper on personal growth when it comes to just wanting to spread your wings and be yourself. So all the genres of opportunities presented to them here were very alluring to all of us.
I also found the Indigenous Artists Market Collective (I.A.M) here, and that was amazing. I always say that when I found them, I found my tribe. As Lorrie Lawrence always says, it’s like a melting pot of Indigenous artists.
Tell us a bit about Beadwork & Bannock and how it came to be.
I grew up raised largely by my grandparents. They were very old-school, very Métis lifestyle, so I spent a lot of my youth on our family trapline, which my brother still runs with my cousin Jason. Despite being so immersed in my culture throughout my life, I didn’t realize then how blessed I was—not until 2011 when my grandmother passed away. She had developed Alzheimer’s around 2006, so it really felt like we lost her a lot sooner, but during that time was when I really began to realize that, wow, once she goes, all of this is gone.
My grandmother was an artisan herself and used what she earned to help supplement the family income. I loved watching her work, and a lot of time I’d get to play around sorting beads… but watching her create all these amazing things and seeing every part of the process—from trap to this beautiful pair of moccasins—was pretty cool. So when she passed away, I made my decision to allow myself to dream about making a living preserving my culture and being able to share it with others and teach my kids. Beadwork & Bannock was the answer. And there’s just so much good that has come from it. It is literally a legacy of love for my culture, my grandparents, and everything they’ve instilled in me. There were quite a few years of dreaming it up in my mind and wanting to be where I am now, but just knowing that this knowledge is for me to pass on to as many people as I can reach makes me very happy.
What inspires your design choices and the stories that your beading and clothing tell?
Again, it goes right back to my grandparents and realizing how much culture they preserved in me that I didn’t realize I carried until I was older. A lot of my beadwork designs are inspired by the work of my grandmother and from learning and exploring our Métis culture. As I did my genealogy, I realized just how far-reaching my Métis ancestry is when it comes to Canada and the United States. Because we were the landless people, we travelled so often that there are bits and pieces of my grandfathers’ and great grandfathers’ and great-great grandfathers’ families from Montana all the way through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It’s pretty amazing to see that. So often I’ll look at all this beadwork from all over these places and feel such a connection to it. And at first, I don’t understand why until I realize it’s that ancestry that draws me in.
What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d had when starting out? And what’s something you knew instinctively that’s still serving you?
The advice I wish I’d had starting out is don’t limit yourself—don’t limit yourself to what you can and cannot do. When I first started, I felt very much that I was in this box and had to stick to mitts and moccasins and the traditional things my grandmother made. But as I’m evolving as an artist, I like to bring in contemporary elements and incorporate new-age thinking with the old—like repurposing fur coats. It’s conservation in itself. And a lot of what we do as trappers is conservation work. Some people have the misconception that we’re out there hauling out these furs and mass-producing and selling them. But, no. We’re actually doing a lot of environmental monitoring. So, for example, if there’s a species that’s low, we’re not going to harvest it. We’re going to refrain. Or if we’ve noticed a species is diseased, we’re submitting that all to the government to be tested to make sure that it’s not something invasive to these species.
The something I just knew from the get-go would probably have to be the importance of transferring knowledge. That was just the biggest driver for me after losing my grandmother and realizing that a lot of her knowledge was gone. Though I only have bits and pieces of it, I’m learning and growing on it every day, remembering more as I carry on. I also realized how important it is for us through truth and reconciliation to share that knowledge back and to give it to our future generations so that they can continue to grow on it and ground themselves with it—because that’s what it did for me.
I strongly believe that the knowledge and traditional practices I was given were meant for me to transfer, not to hold. Letting everyone know there is space for all of us to share and learn these things is something I’m very happy to do.
Tell us about someone who mentored you or helped set you on your path.
That would be my brother. I can really say that my brother has always been one of my biggest supporters and champions. When my grandmother passed away, the two of us sat down and had a conversation about my kids really needing to go to the trapline with him. They were all very small then, but I knew they needed to go with him alone because at that age Mom is everything—Mom, do this. Mom, do that. The trapline is a very wonderful and magical place, but it can also be very dangerous, so I knew they needed to build their relationship with him and the respect he required for them to safely enjoy trapline living—and to learn to grow their wings and be independent. So when my son was around 6 and my other daughter was 10 or 11, they went for their first weekend on the trapline with my brother. And that all started it. That’s when we both realized that if we didn’t transfer that knowledge, it’d be gone. From there, we started to talk about all the things that Grandma would make and decided to give it a try. The rest is history!
Who’s someone inspiring you right now?
Right now, I would probably say the artists with I.A.M. They have so many stories and inspire me so much with their resilience. There’s such an incredible amount of knowledge coming off each of these artists that stems from their families and their histories. And it’s just so inspiring to me to see our art coming back and being appreciated for what it is. The dedication each and every one of them shows to their craft is incredible. We even have one artist, Agnus Jones, who I believe is 89 years old. She does a lot of the similar work that I do, and the last time I saw her at the market I told her that, in my eyes, I am just an apprentice, she is a master, and that—one day—I hope to be as good as her.
Last year, you and your son designed a T-shirt for Orange Shirt Day. What was that experience like for you?
Normally, T-shirts are right out of my element, but I just felt called to tell this story (of our family’s journey of truth and reconciliation)—and to include my children. Part of our coming to knowledge of our past with residential school really shed light on understanding that we have our own story to tell. Knowing that the world is seeing the truth now, we needed to stand in our own truth. So I just really wanted my children to understand their history, as much as I can teach it, and as much as I can learn it myself to pass it on to them so they can understand why we are the way we are these days and which direction we need to move in. I needed a positive outlet to empower them to know that healing is possible, and necessary, and important for them to think about. That’s the real legacy I’d like to leave—that we need to move forward in a positive light, and that sometimes extracting a positive from a negative situation is the best way to grow and heal. That’s what I hope my T-shirts will do.
Tell us a bit about what you’re currently working on or hoping to explore next.
What I’m working on right now is focusing more on my beadwork detail. I just want to grow a little bit more, and explore a little bit more, and venture out into making new things, like satchel-style purses.
I’ve been exploring new mediums and playing around with caribou tufting, too. And it’s like, as soon as I understand my connection to these animals and these things, all of a sudden the creative comes in and I want to work with parts of them!
The kids and I are also working on more Every Child Matters T-shirts and collaborating on some other designs.
What do you want people to understand about the importance of buying Indigenous products from Indigenous artists?
It truly is a preservation of culture and of legacy. Our Indigenous art tells the story of our history, of our connectedness to other cultures and other places, and reminds us of the unity that we need to continue to share. I think it’s good to walk in your individual light and be proud of who you are and where you come from, but it’s also good to be proud of other cultures too—to raise them up and know that you stand in unity with them. So that’s what I’d like people to know: that when they purchase Indigenous art, they’re not only supporting an artist, they’re actually preserving a culture. And that’s an amazing thing.
Describe your perfect day in Edmonton. How do you spend it?
My perfect day in Edmonton would probably be spent exploring one of the many festivals or attractions that you literally find every weekend and everywhere you turn. Spending it with my kids, of course, because I love that.
You visit Edmonton 20 years from now. What do you hope has changed? What do you hope has stayed the same?
Well, I do hope that all the festivals and everything have stayed, but what I really hope to see is more reflection of the Indigenous presence that is here in the architecture and everywhere you turn. It’s starting to look like that now, but I’d really like it to be strongly visible. For example, the history behind the river lot that was here really needs to come to the surface—and in a good way. Because even though it’s a dark history, it’s a very positive place, and I love being there.
Want more YEG Arts Stories? We’ll be sharing them here all year and on social media using the hashtag #IamYegArts. Follow along! Click here to learn more about Frances Whitford, Beadwork & Bannock, and more.
About Frances Whitford
Frances Whitford is originally from Anzac, Alberta, but now calls Edmonton home. She was raised by her grandparents and grew up surrounded by Métis culture and craft, spending much time on the family trapline. Frances learned most of her craft from her grandmother, a Métis artisan, who made various pieces for the family and to sell in an effort to supplement the family’s income. Her grandfather was a trapper who would supply the furs and hides needed for her grandmother’s craft. Today, Frances’s brother has stepped into the role of trapper and supplies a large amount of the hides and furs that allow Frances to continue to learn and hone her skills.
Frances’s pieces, such as moccasins, mukluks, gauntlet mitts, and other Métis-oriented items, are made mainly of traditional and commercial-tanned moose hides, as well as beaver, fox, lynx, rabbit, and various other types of furs. Some of her Beadwork & Bannock pieces also include her beadwork.
As Treasurer of the Indigenous Artists Market Collective (I.A.M), Frances looks forward to continuing to promote, support, and participate in the advocacy and perseverance of Indigenous art and culture that she sees thriving in this city.
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5/9/22 Daily Blog Post
Last night, a friend asked me what my biggest regret in life was.
16 years ago, on this date May 9, 2006, my grandmother lost the fight against cancer and passed away. Exactly one year ago on May 9, 2021, her husband, my grandfather, joined her in paradise. I was only 3 when my grandmother passed. Although I love and miss her dearly, I did not get to know her as much as I did my grandfather. My grandfather lived with me and my parents for over 5 years in the same house. Of course I shared meals with him. I talked to him. I bonded with him as many grandpa/grandson dynamics go. However, as I grew older, this began to stop. Even when it was clear that my grandfather’s life was coming to an end, I did not talk to him as often. This is my greatest regret. He was always there, but I never took the chance to be there for him, and I know this is entirely my fault. I wish I could talk to him one more time. See his smile one more time. Laugh with him one more time.
To be entirely honest, today has been one of the most emotionally tough days I’ve ever had in my life. I’m happy that my friends made it better. Today was filled with regret, sadness, and mourning. I really missed him today. The fact that I was such a neglectful grandson loomed over my head the entire day. I hope that I can at least make my grandparents proud.
The homie Gabi woke up and did yoga today. Then, she went and did a lot of her assignments. Good for her.
The homie Steph woke up at 2:30pm and had an interview for a position. He then also finished assignments. Good for him.
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The 2011 survival murder case in Guui-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. The son, a high school senior, stabbed his mother to death.
2. Background[edit]
The perpetrator, Ji Mogun's mother, said that her mother (Ji's maternal grandmother) passed away in 1974, when he was in the third grade of middle school, and that he grew up in a single-parent household, where his father (Ji's maternal grandfather) usually favored his younger brother (Ji's maternal uncle) and ignored and bullied him.
As a result of growing up in such an environment, Ji-gun's mother has been exhibiting strange behavior since the beginning of their marriage. She once told her husband that she was suicidal and said, "I can't put my hand in cold water because I'm precious. You cook the meals and do the laundry."[2][3] Ji-gun's father (53 at the time)[4] was so overwhelmed by his wife's behavior that he left the house and eventually ran away from home,[5] leading to divorce proceedings. Zigun's mother then became extremely obsessed with her son's grades.
Ji Mogun (18 years old and a senior in high school at the time of the crime) reportedly studied for 16 hours a day in the third grade and scored over 900 on the TOEIC in the sixth grade. In middle school, he excelled in school, ranking in the top 4500 in the country.
But in 2006, Ji-gun's parents separated and went through a divorce, which put a lot of stress on his studies. His mother used to tell him, "Go to Seoul National University Law School. I want you to do well," and "You have to be number one in the country." His mother would withhold dinner from him if his grades dropped or he didn't study, and she would physically punish him with a baseball bat or red-headed slap.
In fact, the law department at Seoul National University School of Law stopped recruiting students in 2008 when it was converted into a law school in accordance with Article 8 of the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Law Schools[6]. If you are a parent who cares about your child's career, there is no way in hell that you would have encouraged your child to take the 2011 college entrance exam to attend SNU Law. In other words, the parents were only interested in their son's grades and test scores, and had no interest in encouraging and helping him to do well in his studies, such as providing career counseling that suited his aptitude or listening to his complaints about difficulties in his studies.
In the days leading up to the murder, Ji-gun testified that she made him do 10 hours of lying down stretches, deprived him of sleep, and assaulted him with golf clubs and baseball bats. This was backed up by friends who said his body was covered in bruises, and a medical examination revealed that his hips were even, and he had hearing loss and tinnitus in one ear. It is believed that the slap ruptured his eardrum.
Ji-gun's father also told The Korea Times, "When my son was 7 years old, he was wearing long-sleeved pants in the middle of summer, so when he walked, he had bruises all over his body. I think my wife took out her hatred for me on my son," he testified. In addition, the aunt said, "I think he thought, 'I'm the only one she has,' but when he didn't eat for two days and didn't sleep, he had an abnormal thought, 'I can't live without her,'" and added, "I think the psychological insecurity caused by the mother's divorce case intensified her obsession with her son. For my nephew, his mother was irresistible," he said. "I knew she was passionate about education, but I didn't think she would abuse him to such an extreme."
As this was a horrific case of survival murder that occurred only a year after the arson murder in Hawangsimni-dong, and the victim was similar to the victim of domestic violence, the public reacted that the family was literally falling apart and society was falling apart.
Meanwhile, at the request of the perpetrator, Ji-gun, the trial was held as a public participation trial, and he was sentenced to three years in prison for the short term and three years and six months for the long term." #
The perpetrator of this case, Lee Eun-seok, cried in his final statement that he missed his mother and regretted his murder.# In fact, it is a very sad case that Ji-gun himself regretted the murder and said that he misses his mother, even though the victim was sympathetic enough considering what he had done to the perpetrator.
However, unlike Lee Eun-seok's case, the father in this case still showed some understanding. As mentioned above, the father was also in a position where he suffered a great deal of damage, although not as much as the perpetrator. It's not surprising that the video child became a murderer, and Lee Eun-seok was a victim of domestic, school, and military violence that crossed the line. It's a wonder he has any sense of reason left. And while the Lee case was a tragedy caused by a parent's maniacal compensatory psychology, this case is more of a tragedy caused by a parent's twisted affection."[7]
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RP - Julius and Danny's journal record
*begin of transmited*
Julius Caesar: great-grandfather danny and my great-grandmother Sawyer told me to his rival Darla Dimple after to she busted and fired from studio movie, and he and his friends rehide to their dream come true, but she grew up has rehabilitated after to Hospital after to Darla age 12th…
*skip 14 minutes*
Julius Caesar: Danny and Sawyer has kittens, that's mean my grandfather and my granduncle and grandaunt, while my grandfather, but make worst, Darla turns 26th to make worst too much, she still afraid of animals, 1957, my grandfather try ignore her-
*skip 16 minutes*
Julius Caesar: my mother while she Darla has dautgher mabel in 1967-
*more skip 16 minutes*
Julius Caesar: in 1982, my Grandfather marry a Princess Akuma girl and has daughter, and in 1993 Darla Dimple become older age and turns age 61 and Darla lost her memory because she has demencia where she forget her rival my great-grandfather Danny the blond cat because Danny passed away for age 86 made Darla's revenge for her hopeness, my mother turns 19th before to she meets clan of gargoyles after she moved to new york.
*more skip 14 minutes*
Julius Caesar: Darla died in 4th oct 2006 in her age oldest after I turns 12 years old, and founder hire me, to Become best actor protagonist heroic, and Musical like my Great-grandfather Danny, L.B. Mammoth's grandchildren deal me to my dream is complete, I made revenge hope to Darla, now I turned 21 still now, that's it, when I will turns 75 and I'll died from my despressed.
*end of transmited*
Renki Mohamed: it's that Danny's family long story, just anthropomorphic animals like me and Julius
Miku Akatsuki: *nod* me too, Renki.
*end of event*
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I got my first car in April of 2021. I then my license on July 1st of 2021. I had bought my car from my grandpa and I named it DJ after my great grandmother who passed away. It’s a dark blue 2006 chevy Malibu. I love it and I made it my own with decorations. It’s my baby and i’ve taken good care of it but it is old and starting to get beat up and I am wanting a new car. I don’t know a single thing about cars, all I know is the features I want in my car. I’d love to have a sunroof, aux, apple car play, and the feature that tells you how many miles until empty. I’ve been having my brother and parents car shop for me since I don’t know what brands are trustworthy, ideal, last the longest, etc. I told them what I want in my car and they’ve been trying to find cars to match. I haven’t had a job the past few months due to school but I just applied to Jamba Juice and I hope I get the job, I’m really excited to work again. Since I haven’t had a job I haven’t really been able to save for a new car, but I told myself that once I do get a job i’m gonna take a certain amount out of every paycheck to go toward a new car. I’m really excited for school to be over and I can work and hangout with friends and have money again and be stress free.
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Full interview below.
The first thing Max Minghella does when he joins our Zoom call is ask me about the weather. It wasn't just a conversational cliché though, he really wanted to know what it was like where I was. I tell him I'm in New York City, where spring can surprise you with a day that's colder or warmer than it looks. This particular day was chilly. "I'm always cold," he interjects, "I'm reptilian. My body finds a way to keep me cool." He shivered as he spoke, sitting in his sunny backyard in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt. I checked the temperature right after our call. It was 80 degrees in L.A.
Despite any discomfort, Minghella is just really happy to be at home. Unlike the millions of people who spent 2020 in quarantine, he was working on season four of The Handmaid's Tale throughout the spring and summer."I'm sort of jealous of people who have this moment to pause and reflect," he says soberly. "Even with all of the trauma it's caused and all the things that obviously were detrimental, I know a lot of people who've had big life changes in the past year."
He acknowledged, however, that creating something in a time when everyone wished they could escape was ultimately a lucky thing. "There was a ubiquitous sense of gratitude," he adds.
Outside of the global pandemic, the dynamics on set had shifted — this season, his co-star Elisabeth Moss (or "Lizzie" as he affectionately calls her), was a director. "She was amazing on set," he explained. "Just very in control and it ran super smoothly. When I saw the episodes she directed, it just kind of blew me away. Her style — it's very cinematic and it really underlines the sci-fi elements of the show. It has a real kind of scope and confidence to it. I think she's a real filmmaker."
RELATED: Marvel's New Face Danny Ramirez Has the Range
Minghella's character Nick has an interesting arc this season too – he's realizing his role as a senior member of the Gilead ruling class, but also still in love with June [Moss]. It's a complex character that challenges you as an audience member. He is the brooding love interest, and while you may root for him and June to be together, you also have to see him for what he is: an architect of a world that kidnaps women and uses them for childbearing.
What made the previous three seasons of the show even harder for viewers to digest was the fact that people so badly wanted to believe there could be a good guy defector — maybe even Nick — in a room full of bad guys. During those years, many people felt that the dystopian elements of the show were reflective of the nationalist agenda being put forth in the United States by the Trump Administration. So much so that a group of protesters famously wore Handmaid costumes to protest anti-abortion bills and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. Without saying much about the parallels in the show — other than chalking them up to "pure coincidence," Minghella felt the Handmaid's Tale, whose protagonists are anti-Gilead, are "on the right side of history." He added diplomatically, "Ultimately, I'm most proud because I think it's really great fiction."
I get the sense that the pursuit of "great fiction" is something that consumes Minghella. He's someone who appreciates art (he got his big break in 2006's Art School Confidential), and his parents are Anthony Minghella, the late award-winning director of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and actress Carolyn Choa. He loves details (see our earlier weather conversation). Even the way he talks about Los Angeles has a story-like quality. He tells me about how he knew when the city became his home after a feeling he got driving past the Silver Lake 7-Eleven. As he told it, I pictured it like a scene in an indie movie starring Zach Braff.
"I had this sort of pathological obsession with movies from birth. [My mother] worked for the British equivalent of the Motion Picture Association, so she would watch three films a day. By three or four years old, I was just kind of an obsessed movie person." It's his favorite movie, Beverly Hills Cop ("I think I saw 100 times by the time I was eight years old," he says) that inspired another big role he was working on during quarantine: Minghella stars as a detective opposite Chris Rock in the Saw franchise spin-off Spiral: From the Book of Saw.
"The movie was so serendipitous for me. I feel like I almost manifested it in my life," Minghella muses. "There's a line very early in the movie where we're investigating these crime scenes and we come to a grizzly one. My character looks nauseous. Chris's [character] says to me, 'Are you okay?' And my character says, 'Yeah. I mean I'd been dreaming about this since I was 12-years-old.' And that was a very kind of weird line because it's just true."
Now at 35 years old, Minghella is feeling settled. He is still a "film nerd" that gets giddy with each new opportunity, but he's less anxious about the results. Next thing on his list? Vacation.
"I'm hoping in May once the movie comes out I can run away somewhere."
Read on for his cheesy would-be campaign slogan, his fast-food weakness, and the time he escaped a tornado while working on a film with Blake Lively.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Mary Tyler Moore.
What's the last thing you do before you fall asleep?
I listen to 1950s radio shows. Usually Dragnet. I was researching a project in that period briefly and got sort of into the radio culture of that time. And now I find it incredibly soothing.
Favorite villain?
Hans Gruber.
Describe a memorable dream.
I had a recurring nightmare as a child in which my grandmother turned into a cat. So Tom Hooper's Cats was very traumatizing to me.
First album you ever owned?
My mother bought me the Top Gun soundtrack on audio cassette.
If you were required to spend $1,000 today, what would you buy and why?
I would do anything to help a distressed dog.
If you ran for office, what would your slogan be?
Some kind of tacky pun using my first name. "Take it to the Max," or maybe "Max on, Max off."
Name one place you've never been but have always wanted to go.
Easy. Japan. I went when I was one, but I don't think that counts.
What's the most uncomfortable outfit you've ever worn?
I did a film called Art School Confidential and I had to wear a beret and I found every moment of it truly humiliating. I remember being completely traumatized by it.
Describe your first kiss.
My first kiss was at a bus stop. I was 14 and I lied and told the girl that it wasn't my first kiss, but I think it was probably immediately evident that it was.
What's one dish you're always tempted to order if you see it on a menu?
There are so many things. That's the sad answer. French fries is the truth.
Favorite on-set memory?
I did a movie called Elvis and Anabelle with Blake Lively like 100 years ago and we shot in Texas. There was a tornado one night that forced us to evacuate the set and we had to sort of drive off in a hurry. I put on this song by The Knife called "Pass This On" in the car which is very dramatic and cinematic. The tornado was sort of in pursuit of the vehicle while we were speeding away. And it was just far enough that it wasn't life-threatening, but also a radical visual. That's one of my favorite life memories.
The Handmaid's Tale season 4 premieres on Hulu April 28, and Spiral: From the Book of Saw hits theaters on May 11.
Photographs by Emily Malan. Grooming by Sonia Lee for Exclusive Artists using La Mer. Polaroid Photos by Max Minghella. Special thanks to Polaroid. Production by Kelly Chiello.
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Oh, the places you’ll go
On the next-to-last day of her life, my grandmother, sister and I played a game of solitaire. My grandmother saw the cards float around the room, sometimes settling around us or landing on her hospital bed. “Can you reach the jack? I need the jack,” she said, so my sister DeeDee reached up, tapped it in the air, and floated it to grandma. My chair held the queen of diamonds, so I moved a bit, picked it up, and flicked it over to the hospital bed. We played this imaginary game for a while, my grandmother calling out the cards she saw floating around, and DeeDee and I finding them and sending them through the air to her bedside.
Dementia didn’t take away grandmother’s love for solitaire; it just transformed it into an imaginary floating game. But it took other things from her. Dementia is a horrible illness that robs your loved ones of their personalities, their smiles, their memories. It replaces the characteristics you love about people with ones that live in the shadows or that they kept suppressed. There’s rage (frequently, especially in the early stages), passivity, and hallucinations of the kind my grandmother had, where figments of real life and real memories collide to form something different and not altogether understandable. Sometimes these transformations are endearing, but other times they are corrosive and frightening. My grandmother was in her early 80s when dementia struck and 92 when she passed away. Dementia is corrosion over a long, long period of time.
Yes, I’ve seen dementia up close and personal, but I also don’t want to see it. And so I didn’t see it, not for a long time, in my dad. In summer 2020, at the height of the pandemic, my dad suddenly moved in to my house after his partner had a heart attack. Until that point I hadn’t really spent much time with dad in recent years much beyond the obligatory visits and phone calls. Seven years ago he suffered a massive stroke and lost the use of his left arm and some of his mobility. After the initial flurry of ICU, skilled nursing, intensive rehab, and occupational rehab, dad settled in with his partner and she managed all of his care. The arrangement suited me just fine, if I’m honest, because dad was well-cared for, he never seemed to want my company, and anyway I was busy with my own family and a demanding career. I blithely left the daughterly ministrations to my sister DeeDee and kept it moving. If dad sometimes seemed confused when we chatted, or if he got angry when we tried to explain why he should not give his social security number to everyone who called or order junk from Publisher’s Clearinghouse, I just attributed it to his stubbornness and general disinterest in what his daughters had to say about anything.
My inattention over the years meant that I knew almost nothing about my dad’s health or habits when he came to stay with us. He uses a hemi cane (the four-footed kind) to walk while his arm hangs limp to his side. He can’t make himself a sandwich. Someone needs to be with him most of the time. He can’t get himself dressed or get himself undressed for bed. He’s a terrible singer (like, really, really terrible. So terrible). He’s also incredibly funny with a sly sense of humor. He’s also a combat-era veteran and that entitles him to home health assistance. We thought his visit was temporary and acted accordingly, setting up a hospital bed in the downstairs bedroom we use as an office, bringing in a recliner chair, arranging for aides to come to the house to help him shower and dress, and keeping the TV on all day.
We all settled in for a nice short visit, in other words. And then, the morning after his arrival, dad asked, “Have you seen your mother?” Mom passed away suddenly in 2006. My father had never spoken of her with me since she died. I tensed up because I knew now what I didn’t want to know. He asked about mom under his breath as if he and I were conspirators with secrets to keep from others, but his voice contained a level of energy that suggested that he’d been waiting for some time to ask me this question. I said no. He looked really hurt. “You haven’t heard from her?” he asked again. “No, she hasn’t reached out to me,” I said in response. “Do you have her number?” he asked. I told him that I didn’t have it. Then he said, “I saw her last night but she didn’t give me her number so I was hoping you had it.” This time he spoke as if we were on a business call exchanging information. I told him no again. Then I added, “But I miss her.” He nodded and said, “me too.” While dad finished breakfast I went into the home office where we had placed his hospital bed. I removed the photos of my mother from the bookshelves.
What I thought was a temporary stay while his partner recovered has now lasted nearly two years. While he’s been with us, he’s received an official diagnosis of vascular dementia hastened by his stroke. Dad will likely not return to his home, and it will be my responsibility to care for him. From my grandmother’s experience I learned that dementia is a journey and it’s best to just go on the journey with your loved one. Oh, the places you’ll go.
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George Toogood Smith || John Lennon’s uncle
George's paternal grandmother's maiden name was Toogood which was given to George as a middle name [isn’t that neat?]
Smith operated his family's two dairy farms and a shop with his brother Frank in the village of Woolton. The farms had been in the Smith family for four generations. Smith delivered milk by horse and cart in the Woolton area.
Mimi became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital, to which George delivered milk every morning.
George started seriously courting Mimi in the spring of 1932, but was constantly thwarted by her indifference and her father's interference. George Stanley (Mimi's father) would only allow the couple to sit in the back room of the family home in Newcastle Road when he or his wife were in the front room, and before it grew too late Mimi’s father would burst into the back room and loudly order Smith home.
The courtship lasted almost seven years my God George really, really must’ve liked Mimi. But Smith grew tired of waiting, so after delivering milk to the hospital one morning he gave her an ultimatum that she must marry him, "or nothing at all!" I see where John get’s a bit of his personality from not gonna lie. 15th of September 1939, Mimi finally married George.
Sadly after WW2 started, the British government took hold of his family’s farms for war work, so he had to find alternative income. So he left the milk trade business and went into bookmaker’s.
Menlove Avenue suffered extensive damage during the war, and George and Mimi often had to throw a wet blanket on incendiary bombs that fell in their garden [fun times]
Smith was called up for military service, but was discharged three years later, and subsequently worked in an aircraft factory in Speke until the end of the war.
Mimi often complained George was a compulsive gambler and would gamble all their money away[naughty naughty]
Smith was very fond of Lennon, and his softer approach to parenting was in stark contrast to his stern wife; in contrast, George used to give the young Lennon "squeakers" (kisses) that his wife did not approve of. Literally this right here is my favorite, squeakers oh my God--
George taught the four-year-old Lennon to read by reading aloud the headlines of the Liverpool Echo, read him nursery rhymes at night, and later taught Lennon how to solve crossword puzzles.
George told John that words did not have to be taken at face value, as they had many different meanings. Something John would later use in his writing [I’m sure reading Lewis Carroll also had a hand in this]
He also taught Lennon to draw and paint, and bought him his first mouth organ.
Mimi admitted that she never had the time to "go playing ducks in the bath with him (John)" but that Smith would put John to bed nearly every night.
Mimi later said: "John [Lennon] loved his uncle George. I felt quite left out of that. They'd go off together, just leaving me a bar of chocolate and a note saying: 'Have a happy day.’”
Though he worked at night and early in the morning on the farm and his milkround, George often took John and his cousins to the cinema or the park.
When the cousins played outside Smith allowed them to eat meals with their hands in the garden shed.
During the school holidays John and his cousins were allowed to accompany Smith on his milk rounds, and every year he allowed John to place a bet on the Grand National [naughty naughty]
He died when John was only fourteen, and when John was away visiting family in Sango Bay, Durness Scotland. He wasn’t informed about George’s passing until he returned home.
Lennon's first reaction was to laugh hysterically, but then to privately grieve and cry. Very common of how he reacted to the death of people he loved, like Julia and Stuart.
John would later meet Paul for the first time at St. Peter's Church, where uncle George was buried
After Smith's death, Lennon insisted on wearing a large overcoat that had belonged to uncle George, and even though it became worn and threadbare, Lennon wore it throughout his art college years.
Mimi never used the downstairs sitting room again after her husband’s death, using only the breakfast room and the kitchen, and never replaced the furniture, which became old and faded.
When Lennon was living in the United States, he asked his half-sister, Julia Dykins, to send the clock that was previously in the living room at Mendips, which had been passed down through Smith's family, and was inscribed with the words "George Smith, Woolton Tavern", on a metal plate on the back.
In Lennon's last published interview, he said: "This image of me being an orphan is garbage, because I was well protected by my auntie and uncle [Smith and Mimi] and they looked after me very well, thanks.”
Sources: "The Beatles Trail - Menlove Avenue to Woolton Village". Liverpool Pictorial; The Beatles – The Biography, Spitz; "Relationship: Uncle of John Lennon - 1903 - 5 June 1955". The Liverpool Lennons; Cynthia Lennon “John” 2005; Parkes, Stanley. "Blue Suburban Skies"; Kiesling, Bill (2006). "What if they gave a revolution and nobody came?"; Graham (2005). "The Beatles' Connection". St. Peter’s Church, Woolton; Norman, Philip. "Chapter One: "He Was The One I'd Waited For""; "John Ono Lennon". Instant Karma; "Photo Tour of Mendips: The Kitchen". The Liverpool Lennons; Coleman, Ray (1987). Lennon.
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June 20th, 2006 THE FOLDING (excerpt)
ONE. Winter. Squinting through the windshield into an unusually dark afternoon, headlights reflecting off of white rain and sleet, I slowly ease on my brakes. A ways ahead, a wave of brake lights exclaim red. Their exclamations are brightly lit, aligned ahead of one another, stretching up and over the top of a small hill. I let out a sigh of frustration and fear as the car slows to a stop. Between the sleet, my shoddy winshield wipers, and my wounded red eyes, I can barely see the car in front of me. Confusion. I can't stop thinking about all of the details of the night, and I try desperately to think about something, anything less painful. Nothing. Everything else I try to think about comes back to Tonight. It's like that board game Chutes and Ladders, where every memory I was able to find soothing is a space on the board, and there are two chutes spiraling down. One back to the Start, before any of this mess started. That's the place I wish I could escape to. But my mind keeps rolling unlucky, down the other chute, whipping past all the other spaces on the board. Memories of childhood, first kisses with new girlfriends, humiliation, denial, triumph, loss. As hard as I try, there is no use. My brain has already rerouted everything back to Tonight. Just get away. Drive far away. Reality snaps back into place, and I haven't driven but ten miles from Tonight. Damned traffic. My attention now turns back to the exclamations ahead, and I've made my way up to the top of the hill. Just below, down the road are white and red flashing lights. Four police cars, two ambulances, and two small cars twisted and tangled together. It didn't look like the kind of accident people were walking away from. Still, the accident only brings my mind back to Tonight. My mind keeps rolling unlucky. Escape now. Skip town. Get out. There is nothing left. Not anymore. As I slowly roll past the accident, I don't stare out of my window into the wreckage like the people in the cars in front of me. I always found that sort of thing cruel and in some ways, sadistic. Disrespectful. Looking for an arm, a leg maybe, spilling out of a shattered window... I've always been afraid to see a body that wounded, not eager to. As I pass, I feel an overwhelming swarm of pressure and isolated pain in my temples. It's happening. I feel myself folding from the outside in. I've fallen down the long, descending chute that leads back to a place I yearn to forget. Down a twisting spiral and around a long turn, then down again. There is a straight-away ahead now, and the end of the dark, narrow chute is quickly approaching. Stop. Turn back. It's not too late... But I've spilt out of the chute and onto my kitchen floor. The bright halogen lights from my new ceiling fixtures are sharp on my eyes, but in my mind, in this world, I feel no pain. The fall from the chute left me virtually spotless. Everything is familiar. My kitchen, my chairs, my countertops, my oak trim. The kitchen table. The opened white envelope with my name on it. The letter she wrote folded in half. The white gold band with our engagement diamond sitting there between the letter and the opened white envelope. And the answering machine on the countertop. Blinking red with a message. I have a message, but I don't want to hear it. Not again. I start spinning... The room begins to look unfamiliar. Focus. The red light. The blinking red light. Just then, I blink my own red eyes and I'm back in my car. The traffic is gone. The police cars are gone. The ambulances are gone. I don't know how much time has past. Maybe hours. I must have had an "episode" again. The doctors have some medical term for it, but they've been referring to it as the "the folding". When it happens it feels like my body folds up into origami as I recede into my subconcious. It's like narcolepsy meets lucid dreaming meets the most painful fucking headaches you could imagine. Ahead there is a soft, blinking light. It's not the terrible voice message on my machine. It's a caution light blinking red above a stop sign a quarter mile up the road. What is happening to me? I reach into my coat pocket to get my pills and I pull out a white envelope with my name on it. Inside is the letter she wrote, folded in half. In the bottom of the envelope, hiding in the corner sits her ring. The ring my grandfather gave to my grandmother. The ring my grandmother left to me when she passed, to give to a woman I love one day. I open the letter and read the words that I already know by heart. "I've left. Don't try to find me. I'm so sorry but I can't be there for you this time. Not after how you've changed. Check the answering machine. I'm so sorry. Your brother is dead. -Rachel" I'm out of my medication. Tomorrow is Christmas Day.
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"Drawtober (Day 28): Visit"
True Story time: Way back in October of 2003, my grandfather passed away at 86. Up until that point, I had never had someone that close to me die. At the time, I thought he would always be around. Even though he was sick for most of the time I knew him, he was always happy to see me. And I was happy to see him. But yet, he was gone.
Fast foward three years later in 2006, on the exact same month, I had a dream. My family went to go visit my grandfather at a rehab center. Even though I didn't see it myself, I was told that he recovered from his illness and came back to life.
I remember at one point I stood in his room alone with him. He sat up on the bed. While he looked the same as he always did for most part, he also seemed healthier, happier, a bit younger too. As cliche as it sounds,, it was like he was now in better place now than before.
We didn't talk much, and what little we did I barely remember. In fact I don't think I said anything to be honest. But the last thing my grandad said before I left was " You come back now, you hear?" It was the clearest I had ever heard his voice in my entire life. Not long after that, the dream ended.
I rarely remember my dreams, but this one has always stuck with me, even 18 years later. I had a never had dream like that before or since.
My grandfather was a lot of things in his life, a teacher, a deacon, a World War II vet, a loving father, and of course a devoted husband.
My grandmother, who had been married to him for 60 years recalled that he would visit him in her dreams numerous times after he passed.
She just recently passed last year herself. But a part of me wonders if she got to visit him one last time before she went.
I just wonder if I'll get my chance to visit them again before it's my time too.
This one is for you, Johnnie Jackson. Rest In Peace.
#pen and ink#mixed media#markers and ink#grandfather#tribute#drawtober 2021#drawtober#visit#based on a true story#a personal true story
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I’ve never actually tried listening to MCR, but I’d like to give it a try. Do you have any recommendations for a new listener?
HELLO THERE! i’d be more than happy to give you some recommendations! hoooo boy i’m excited for this
i’ll recommend you one song from each of their albums, because all their albums have different sounds and wildly different concepts that the music is based on. to start off, they have a total of 5 studio albums. here are the albums, and a song from each one, arranged chronologically!
i brought you my bullets, you brought me your love (2002)
their first studio album, and i’d recommend listening to skylines & turnstiles, because it perfectly encapsulates the origins of the band. gerard way (the band’s frontman) wrote this song after he watched the 9/11 attacks when he was interning for cartoon network in nyc (he recently graduated from new york school of visual art at that time). after watching the 9/11 attacks, he decided that he needed to get out there and create some good fuckin music.
three cheers for sweet revenge (2004)
this was the album that really made them blow up. after this was released, they were signed to a record label, and this album sort of allowed all of them to pursue music full time i guess you could say that? for this album, i’d recommend helena. this song was named after gerard and mikey’s (they are siblings, mikey is the bassist of the band) grandmother who passed away while the band was in the process of writing this album. her passing had dramatically impacted the process of songwriting. this song is dramatic, it’s exhilarating, and the aesthetics of the music video is CHEFS KISS. (i’m sorry i suck at description...)
the black parade (2006)
WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN WITH THIS ALBUM. a whole masterpiece. everything, from the concept, ahh this album is just so fucking iconic. this album is what made MCR like, international. they were on covers of teen magazines alongside like, joe jonas and all that jazz lmao. their most famous song, welcome to the black parade is from this album. however, i’d like to recommend the sharpest lives. i would sell my kidneys to hear this song for the first time again. it’s such an important song to me, and there are many aspects of this song which i absolutely love to death, but if i had to pick one, i’d say the lyricism,,, is just so,,, fucking beautiful. the pure unadulterated anger and tragedy surrounding this song,, god. oh my God. ((ok let’s move on before i actually have a breakdown))
danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys (2010)
now this album is COLOURFUL. its LOUD. its dripping with REBELLION and its sick and tired and its all about REVOLUTION. the songs on this album,, these are songs to listen to while you overthrow the government. from danger days, i’ll recommend na na na! i’m pretty sure it’s one of their greatest hits as well, even my friends who don’t really listen to the rock / pop punk genre really like this song. it’s REALLY catchy, you’ll probably catch yourself humming along to the melody in no time. concept wise, this album is my FAVOURITE. (if you’d like to know more about the concept of any one of their albums, feel free to message me, i’d be really happy to explain!)
other basic facts about MCR:
gerard arthur way (frontman, vocals)
michael james way (bassist) + (we just call him mikey)
frank anthony iero jr (rhythm guitarist) + (we just call him frank iero)
raymond toro (backing vocals, lead guitarist) + (we just call him ray toro)
ex-members: bob bryar (drummer), matt pelissier
feel free to hit me up if you have anymore questions about MCR! let me know what you think of their music!
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Elizabeth Rose Narumiya
Ikk What if... Bella Swan has a twin sister Elizabeth Rose Swan, when their Parents divorce their father Charlie Swan gotten Custody of Elizabeth while their mother Renee gotten custody of Bella.
******
Before Paul Lahote ever phaseto walf he was dating Elizabeth Swan for 2 years but, when he didn’t imprint on her. He broke up with her so that he dosen’t end up hurting her when he dose imprint on another if they continue their relationship like Sam Uley my new Alpha did whe meet Emily imprinted a few days before his wedding with Leah Clearwater.
But after their break up, Elizabeth Swan
decided to leave forks and start living with her grandmother Marie Higginbootom in Japan and I’m starting my sophmore year in Inashiro vication high that’s where she meet Narumiya Mei, who she evenutally become friends with even though sometime she thinks he’s a llittle arrogant but she still care about him. She slso gotten close with the Baseball Inashiro team.
Elizabeth has acquired a great interest in Baseball that equal to her interest in Tennis especially since she began dating Mei Narumiya
Since in every Baseball game the Inashiro has Mei make sure that she’s watching the game, and she never miss game not once since they began dating.
A year after...
Elizabeth left Forks, Renee Higginbottom re-married to someone way younger than her self. His name is Phil Dwayer his a baseball coach .
I meet Phil Dwyer for the first time when my mother Renee married him, my boyfriend Mei Narumiya was their with me in Arizona Phoenix, but Mei dosen’t know Phil so Phil most likely just starting out as a baseball coach.
3 month after...
Mum married Phil, my twin sister Bella Swan
decided to move with our dad in forks for who knows what reason since she never hidden the fact that she can’t stand visiting Forks since it’s mostly raining and hardly have a sunny day. But it’s not my bussiness why my sister moved with our Dad after she stop visiting Forks after we turn 14 years old.
1 and 1/2 year later ...
It’s been 2 years since Mei and I began dating and during that summer the Inashiro’s baseball team lost in the National since Mei end up throwing the ball farther than he intended that Masa wasn’t able to catch the ball causing them the game. After that Mei cried infront of the whole team because of it and it also ruwin his form that he has to rebuild it to top to bottom, but evenitally he got back on his feet after reforming his style.
Inashiro’s Tennis team also manged to reach National and Winning because of Elizabeth. Being one of the best tennis player in Inashiro.
on September 13, 2006
Elizabeth Swan celebrate her 19th Birthday with her Boyfriend Mei Narumiya along with the Baseball and Tennis Team of Inashiro first string.
But while Elizabeth is celebrating her 19th birthday her twin sister Bella decided not to celebrate her’s after what happen in her 18th birthday party that ex-boyfriend Edward Cullen’s family their was an accident and weeks later Edward end up breaking up with her so she’s not take a chance that Jake might break up with her as well if she celebrate her 19th birthday.
Charlie Swan and Renee Dwyer still help Bella get over her break up with the Cullen boy, they would have called Elizabeth after Bella’s break up if bella was acting like she’s a zombie since Elizabeth sirtenly didn’t went through this when her first boyfriend Paul Lahote broke up with her, before Paul became well known Womanizer.
They even tried what Elizabeth did to heal her brojen heart by trying to get her away from Forks and get Bella to move with Renee in Florida to getvaway from the memories, but she didn’t want to leave town. They were lucky that she even start hanging out her old friends again.
Elizabeth and her Friends are about to Graduate Inashiro in 3 months time and all the senior of the Baseball team will be facing Seidou Baseball team in the National, after winning to reach the semi-final of Natinal that Summer.
2 days later....
Inashiro face seidou in the national that Sawamura guy from seidou is s good pitcher that might even equal Mei one day, but it’s no suprise that seido lost snd this time Inashiro won the National.
that Kazuya Miyuki was watching both Mei and Elizabeth after they lost in the National. It’s not well known that Kazuya has a thing for Elizabeth he still has. He meet Elizabeth before she and Mei began dating. She is one of a kind Girl anyone is lucky to have.
3 months later..
Elizabeth and Mei graduate Inashiro top of their of their year along with their friends.
It’s also Bella’s high school graduation but she berly pass High school because of her Zombie stage in the middle of junior year, but with the help of Jake and his friends she’s getting better. 1 and 1/2 year ago.
The pack are determind to dispost of Victoria so that Bella and their Tribe would be save from those Bloodsuckers. It took them a while to catch up with Victoria and dispost of her, but it wasn’t easy.
1 year later...
Bella start attending Washington University and Paul Lahote end up imprinting on Rachel Black
But Paul still has sttong feelings for ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Swan even if he hasn’t seen her in almost 4 yeas.
Mei and Elizabeth along with all their friends attending Tokyo University and They start living in the same apartment.
3 years later...
Mei and Elizabeth are now 23 years old recent graduate of Tokyo University and after graduation he propose infront of all their friends and teammate. And she said “Yes” to his proposal. But we wouldn’t be married until next year we told my dad and mum the news in one the phone call I usally do.
Elizabeth decided to become a professional singer and Actress that she already a movie out she’s casting as Bobbie.
In Four sisters and a Wedding. While mei gotten scouted by Yomiuri Giants as their star pitcher.
1 year later...
Their wedding is taking place in Forks everything are already reseved and all the wedding invitations are already sent.
Mei and Elizabeth decided to arrive in forks early along with their friends.
2 days later...
Our friends and I were hunging out in La push beach , when Mei suddenly have a guitar in his hand start playing it and singing to Elizabeth.
Theirs nothing I wouldn’t try
Just to make you mind
To get a little closer
would be so devine
Everytime I see you
You make me come undone
I always want you near me
oh why don’t you smile my
only star
shine on baby
simile my only star
oh , why don’t you simle my only stsr
shine on baby, smile my only star
With you by myside
Girl it feels so right
Now that I ‘m close to you
I could stay all night.
No matter where I go
No matter what I do
In the end your smile brings me back to you
oh, why don’t tou simle my only star
shine on baby
(Close to you by Sam Milby)
“Oh that was beautiful Mei, but where did you learn that song. I never heard it before?” Elizabeth ask.
“Well your not the only one who could create song, my beauitfil Queen” Mei said.
“You create that song for me” Elizabeth said
“ I’ll do anything for you “ Mei said.
“Oh that’s so sweet of you” Elizabeth said. Before Mei took Elizabeth in a heated kiss.
The Pack of La push was also at that very beach along with Bella when Mei began playing his guitar and sing to Elizabeth. Paul Lahote, Jared Camron, Sam Uley and Bella recognize Elizabeth in just a first glace.
Paul Lahote didn’t think that he would ever see his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Swan again after leaving Forks when he broke up with her, after he phase into a wolf. He look like she moved on and her heart healed after I left left when I promise that I will always be by her side. Now she now she loves someone else. It felt like a thousand dagger stabbing me in the heart watching Elizabeth kiss another.
“Hey isn’t that Elizabeth” Jared said.
“We fidn’t think we’ll see her again after she left Forks” Sam said.
“You alright, Paul?” Jared ask.
“Of course why wouldn’t I be alright. Anyways I got to go I have something to do “ Paul said before leaving the beach, he knows that Sam and Jared didn’t believe what he said.
“How exactly do you huys know my sister?” Bella ask.
“Well, Elizaberh happen to be Paul’s first Ex-girlfriend before he phase to a wolf, so when he didn’t imprint on her like he hope. He broke up with her and Elizabeth pack her bags and left for Japan the next day.” Jared said.
“Well Paul’s over her right. I mean he already imprinted on Rachel Black” Quil Ateara said.
“ We also thought he would be over Elizabeth, after finding his imprint but...” Jared said
“ But... what?” Embry call ask.
“But...Paul still madly in love with Elizabeth after not seeing her for 8 and 1/2 years” Jared said.
“But I thought, if your imprints would be the centeral of your very world” Seth clearwater said.
“Well for Sam and me that’s the case but that fidn’t happen to Paul while it’s true Paul imprinted on Rachel Black, but Elizabeth still hold such huge part of Paul’s very heart from what we can tell” Jared said.
“All the Elders thought that Paul’s feelings for Elizabeth is to strong before he phase that his imprint was imcomplete for the wolf to truely see Rachel Black as it’s mate” Sam said.
“What’s Elizabeth’s doing in town anyways?” Jake Black ask Bella.
“Well she’s getting married” Bella said.
Leah Clearwater end up imprinting on Mei Narumiya hut like Paul’s own imprinting it’s incomplete, since Mei didn’t pay any attention on her when she tried to gain his attention. Mei’s feelings for Elizabeth is to strong for the imprints to take effect.
A month later...
On Febraruy 14, 2011
Mei and Elizabeth got married the Black and the Clearwater are also in the wedding Leah watch her imprint married Elizabeth Swan and it feel like her heart is being stab by a sword a thousand time than when sam left her for Emily when he imprinted on by Emily.
Renee and Phil are also their at thei wedding.
3 years later....
Leah Clearwater hasn’t seen her imprint since he gotten married to Elizabeth Swan, but they heard from Charlie that Elizabeth and Mei had their first child which happen to be Twin daughters born on May 23, 2014 the oldest daughter was given the name Minako Eliza Narumiya then the secound daughter was given the name Serenity Diana Narumiya and they both look ifentical to their father.
And 1 year after Minako and Serenity were born, Elizabeth gaved birth on another Daughter they name Makato Rose Narumiya who look like her mother.
After that the Cullens Return after leaving leaving for10 years. They return and Bella broke up with Jake after dating for 9 and 1/2 years and Bella decided to marry Edward Fucking Cullen in short notice that her sister Elizabeth wasn’t able to come especially since Elizabeth just given birth to her youngest daughter so she couldn’t even come if she could.
Renee and Charlie didn’t aproved Bella getting married to Edwsrd Cullen after 10 years being seperate and they only ever dated for 1 year atless if she had decided to marry Jake they would understand they bern together for 9 and 1/2 years. And unlike Elizabeth who began dating Mei when they were 17 years old got married when they were 24 and they are now both 27 years old like bella herself.
And after the wedding Bella end up pregnant and give birth to Edward’s daughter Renesmee Carlie Cullen who Jake end up imprinting on.
Renesemee Cullen being half Vampire and half Human grows faster than a normal baby being 3 days old baby she already look like a 1 years old.
Jake decided to fallow his imprint when the Cullen left Forks and move to Alaska to be near Renesmee.
7 years after Renesmee was born and she is already fully grown more beauitful than her own mother.
18 years later....
Minako nd Serenity Narumiya are both 19 years old and will start Collage in about a month, While Makato “Lita” Rose Narumiya is now 18 years old attending Inashiro like their parents did and all three of them love playing Baseball and Tennis. Their younger brother Daisuke Charlus Narumiya who is currently 16 years old.
And he will be attending Inashiro as a 2nd year he was born in March 23, 2017.
He has our mother’s golden brown hair and our father’s blue eyes.
Sailor Pluto is quickly panicking since Sailor Venus, Sailor Jupiter and Princess Serenity are borth 19 year early than the rest of the sailor sailor scouts and Prince Endymione all just recently been born. The only good thing abou this is that Sailor Venus being reborn as the older twin of the Princess and Sailor Jupiter being the younger sister the two could protect Princess Serenity. And since only Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter and their Princess are reborn only Artemis is awaken while Luna stay asleep, until the other scouts are old enough. And because of this a huge change in the timeline small lady will never be born as the daughter of Neo Queen Serenity and Neo King Endymione, but she will still be born as her father’s daughter but she could never be the next princess of the moon. That role will belong to Princess Serenity’s future daughter.
While Elizabeth and Mei are already 45 years old but they still look around their early 20′s since they work out alot to keep in shape and it keep them young.
The next year...
On January 5, 2033
Edward Cullen and Bella are a divorcing each other after being married to one another for 19 years. He is leaving me after finding his real soul mate to the human woman that could match Rosalie’s own beauty Clarissa Ross
And even my daughter Renesmee love her then again we never see eye after she found out her imprint Jake Black and her use to date for almost nine and half years before she broke up with him to marry her father Edward.
I suppose it’s no suprise that my sister Elizabeth has always been more lucky in love than I ever did. She married the one man who would never willingly leave her even for his real soul mate, I know this for a fact since our Step sister Leah Cleawater end up imprinting on Mei Narumiya on my twin sister Elizaberhz’s husband. They been married for 23 years and they still love each other and they have 3 beautiful daughters and one handsome son together.
After my divorce with Edward I left the Cullen covens and moved yo England and become a a nomad vampire, where I found my real mate in Garrett Williams
Who was a solider when he was a human. He is also a human drinker. I also chsnge my diet after meeting my mate, I adjust to drinking Human blood well.
4 years later....
Minako end up marring her college boyfriend Wally West who is currently the hero Flash who took over the role of flash after his Uncle retried as the Flash.
While Serenity gotten married to her high school sweet heart Ryouta Kise
Who’s a pilot and part time model since middle school and a former baketball player and a member of the GOM.
Then their’s Lita who married to Hikaru Hitachiin.
They meet in College he has fashion desginer like his mother.
By the time Artemis return their memories of their past life they were all married and they will not be willing leave their husband for they already love them dearly.
Princess serenity cut the bond she has with Prince Endymione XII and called all the 7 rainbow crystal to become whole to her, while purging Queen Beryl out of Earth, after the task was done she hidden the sliver crystal inside her own body. By then our parents and younger brother already know our past life and they still accepted us as it turn out our mother was also reborn soul she was noble woman from Planet Jupiter and our Father was noble man from Planet Venus so really our younger brother is half Venusian and half Jupiterian.
12 years later...
Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury are both awaken by Luna, but by then Minako, Serenity, and lita already has 11 years old daughters.
The oldest child is the Daughter of Minako and Wally West, her name is Irest Eliza West and she 11 years old born January 1, 2038.
The 2nd oldest is the Daughter of Princess Serenity and Ryouta Kise, her name is Hikari Serenity Kise
She has a younger twin brother by the name Takashi Mei Kise
The Kise twins were born in May 12, 2038.
Then their’s the final childe the daughter of Lita and Hikaru Hitachiin
her name Shizuka Rose Hitachiin born in December 5, 2038.
(Ignore the girl holding strawberry)
#leah clearwater#charlie swan#paul lahote#sam uley#emily young#marie higginbottom#narumiya mei#inashiro#phil dwyer#renee dwyer#bella swan#oc#rachel black#jared cameron#quil ateara#embry call#jacob black#renesmee cullen#renesmee and jacob#sailor pluto#sailor venus#sailor jupiter#prince endymion#princess serenity#sailor moon au#twilight breaking dawn au#wally west#flash#kise ryouta#hikaru hitachiin
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