Endless Reminders ...

A loss of a loved one brings endless reminders in the ensuing hours, days, weeks, months, years ... Since my mom died (almost two months ago now), it seems I can hardly read anything, see anything, think of anything that does not somehow remind me of her.

Here's just a couple of them from the past few days.

• Just yesterday came the word-of-the-day from wordsmith.org: ekistics (see full entry at the bottom of this post). The study of human settlements. Well, my mom, back in the late 60s and early 70s, was really into this. She went to Greece to work with Doxiadis (see below), and she was so excited about it that when I was in grad school, I wrote a (forgettable) Prudence-Dyer-inspired paper for a philosophy of education course about schools, about ekistics. (I hope that paper is long gone.) Mom, by that time, was taking groups of teachers to Greece in the summer, leading tours there, teaching herself modern Greek by listening to tapes as she drove every day to and from her teaching job at Drake University. So ... guess what happened to my eyes when I saw that word in my in-box yesterday?!?
• The past week I've been reading (and should finish this afternoon!) the new novel by Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion, a novel that's gotten wonderful reviews (deserved). I will write more thoroughly about the book tomorrow in "Sunday Sundries," but, for now ...
• Cory, one of the principal characters, is the longtime BF of one of the other principals, but when he suffers a grievous personal loss, they break up. He goes home to live with his mother, who is devastated by the loss. Anyway, while he's home, he begins working for a computer outfit--and he eventually gets an idea for a new game.
• He calls the game "SoulFinder," and just this morning I read his "pitch" to an investor. Cory was talking about a game that would be based on the idea that--in life--you can't find a lost loved one--but in the game you kind of can? I won't tell you anymore--read it!
• Guess what happened to my eyes when I was reading his account of his game idea?

So ... here I am ... and what I wish for this morning is to play SoulFinder and to discover, along the way, that the game has suddenly become real, and in the distance I see my mother, standing in an ancient Greek amphitheater, talking to some eager young teachers about ekistics. I move toward her; she feels my presence; she turns, looks ...

ekistics (i-KIS-tiks)

noun: The study of human settlements, drawing on such disciplines as city planning, architecture, sociology, etc.

Coined by Constantinos A. Doxiadis (1913–1975), Greek architect and urban planner, from Greek oikistikos (of settlement), from oikizein (to settle), from oikos (house). Earliest documented use: 1968.

USAGE: “Yet as any student of ekistics could have predicted, it was Jupiter which remained the economic heart of Edenism. For it was Jupiter which supplied the single largest consumer of He3: Earth and its O’Neill Halo.”

Peter F. Hamilton; The Neutronium Alchemist; Macmillan; 1997.