Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

A new home

Y'all may have noticed that the home page of sinasohn.net has changed. For years, it simply showed a picture of my dad and a (very outdated now) picture of Jared, with a favorite (and appropriate) quote in between. Just in case you missed it, I'll include it here

Nothing ever ends without something else beginning or begins without something else ending. Perhaps this would be easier to remember if we had a word for it. Something like endbegin...

It comes from Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal by Rachel Naomi Remen. This has been a very comforting thought to me, over the last few years.

Does this mean I've stopped mourning the loss of my father? No, not really. The emptiness no longer wells up and forces its way out as uncontrollable screaming and wailing, however. (Nowadays, that's caused by my kids.) Instead, I have come to accept that life must go on without him. It's a little less colorful, certainly not as full as it should be, but, in its way, satisfying and even enjoyable. I still miss my dad every day and wish he could have known his grandkids (and vice versa), but I can make it through the day even knowing he didn't get that chance.

Still, and ending is never just that. It is the beginning of something different. What that something different will be is entirely up to each of us. Sometimes we control the end part of an endbeginning (as when we choose to leave on job for another) and sometimes we don't (as when someone dies). Either way, we do have a say in what the beginning part will be. For me, after my dad died, the beginning was the building of my family. I think he would have liked that.

So, what's on the new page? Well, whereas the old page linked only to Jared's birth announcement (and to Rachel Remen's website), the new one links to the website of each of the kids (Jared, Sara, and Ezra) as well this here journal and my photo journal (which I'll start updating again Real Soon Now.) So far, the kids' pages are just the birth announcements, except for Jared's which has a link to some train info.

Eventually, I'll get all the kids' pages updated, but for now, this is a big step. It means that someone who just puts Sinasohn.net in their web browser will actually find something. Oh, and if things don't look right, it's either because I've got a problem with my CSS or you're using Internet Explorer which sucks to high heaven. (Switch to Firefox.)