I cancelled the Wood Bros. website today. It was there this morning, and now it's gone. The pages are still on my computer, and there are still skeletal cached versions coming up through Google searches, but really, it's gone. I can't remember when I first put up the website; according to the account page at HostBaby, which was the last web host we used, I switched the domain and the hosting over to them in October 2004, but the site had been up a number of years prior to that. For a long time the site also contained a page with information about Sacred Harp singings in the Chicago area - I passed the maintaining of the Chicago singings site on to someone else earlier this year, little knowing that come August the Wood Bros. site itself would be gone. As is Wood Bros., Inc. Custom Cabinetmakers. As is Jerry.
I did go to the shop today and spent some time updating, as best I could, the deposits and payments in Quickbooks, to try to help get the account into some sort of shape that the accountant can use to do a final corporate tax filing - going back over Jerry's entries in the check register, then, as the dates go farther into spring, fewer in his writing and more in Seamus's, until Jerry's handwriting disappears entirely.
A dusty black fleece vest he used to wear in the shop in the winter is still hanging there.
I'm really sorry you're losing your business as well as your husband! Not sure what to say, but feel bad for you.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of a couple of poems by Thomas Hardy. Not cheerful, but they might suit the mood. Sometimes when I have been sad, I found that sad poems suited me better than happy ones.
During Wind and Rain
THEY sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.
They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.
----------------------------------------------
Exeunt Omnes
I.
Everybody else, then, going,
And I still left where the fair was?…
Much have I seen of neighbour loungers
Making a lusty showing,
Each now past all knowing.
II.
There is an air of blankness
In the street and the littered spaces;
Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway
Wizen themselves to lankness;
Kennels dribble dankness.
III.
Folk all fade. And whither,
As I wait alone where the fair was?
Into the clammy and numbing night-fog
Whence they entered hither.
Soon one more goes thither!
Thomas Hardy