Eisenstern 3.12
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As all things, everything went onward from here. Soon Juno aged into a child, and now I have a beautiful little girl. Less little than before. She’s smart, too. Quicker witted than I am, that’s for sure. My mother, well, one of them, has always been on the intelligent end of the spectrum, and grandpa Ezio’s pretty smart too.
I’ve done one thing right in my life I guess, and that’s Juno.
Like she always did with me and Hilda, my mother’s consistently helping Juno with her homework. I was proud to note that she does her homework on her own, even if no one’s around to help her, and it seems she gets through most of her work fine on her own. I haven’t heard any complaints or concerns from her teachers, so I have to assume it’s working out for her.
I’m proud of our little minnow trying to handle things on her own. She doesn’t seem to get scared by new experiences, instead diving right into it like she’s been trying for it her whole life. I love that about her. I’m glad she didn’t get my propensity toward being easily discouraged.
I’m still kind of down about Cassandra. I wonder how Ivander is. If he knows my name, if he looks like me at all. I wonder how things might’ve turned out, if she’d stayed, if I’d never found Bran. The legacy would’ve passed to Hilda, and if she’d failed after me, then it’d have gone to Ari, so it’s not as if the legacy would’ve failed.
What a thing to be remembered by, though. That one fuck up in the family that managed to lose his legacy heir status. Good job.
Juno’s been practicing chess. She also seems to enjoy playing with the chemistry sets grandfather got for my mother and her siblings. It’s good to put those old things to use again. None of mom’s generation were terribly into the mental pursuits and I think grandfather was a little bummed out about it. I would be too. Of course, now I’m more bummed out I can’t keep up with her yammering about whatever it is that’s caught her fascination this time.
It’s fun trying to keep up with her, and somewhat isolating all the same. Branwen has a much easier time keeping up with her than I do. At least one of us does.
She’s a little more active of a child than I was. She’s still as sweet as she was when she was a toddler, though, even now with all that energy to burn.
The decision to purchase another home in Del Sol Valley went through alright. Juno how has an entire mansion in her name, though she’s unaware of this just now. I’d rather keep it that way. She’s too young yet to be concerned with my ex and her varying schemes, that’s for myself and Branwen to be worried about. And a lot more of my grandfather than I was expecting, but of course he’s defensive of our land. He worked rather hard to establish us as a legacy family in the first place, and there are all kinds of rules we have to abide by to stay legally recognised as such. I don’t really know all the details, but I guess I don’t have to.
At this rate, we won’t be a legacy family for long, or at least I won’t be heir for long, but that’s just my pessimism talking, probably.
Juno tells the most interesting stories now that she’s older and her vocabulary has expanded. Not that her doll stories weren’t interesting before, but now the plotlines make a little more sense.
I’m glad Branwen seems to know what to do with kids. It’s not like Hilda and I are too far apart in age, so I never had to learn the hard way how to manage kids. Maybe I should’ve been paying more attention when we were younger, but I honestly thought they’d choose Hilda. I mean, she’s the youngest. And smarter than me. And prettier…
I’m working on it. More than one person has told me I’m a little more negative than I should be or however they worded it. I hardly remember, but I think a good part of me didn’t want to hear it, still doesn’t. I’m still not coping with anything very well. Moms are a blessing.
Hilda still comes by, and I’m glad for that. She and Austin had a little girl some time ago, I think they named her Laura or something. I sent some of Juno’s toys she never played with over to them. Someone may as well get some mileage out of them, right? She seems happy. Much happier than I am, and Austin doesn’t seem to be making any serious mistakes.
It’s not like I’d really do anything. Except, let her know she’s always welcome to come back home if she needs it, no matter where that home might be.
Death comes for us all. And it was moms’ time.
Within seconds of each other, even, they were both gone. I think I prefer that, as weird as it sounds. Mourning them both at once feels a little easier, in some ways, and I don’t have to watch one of them try to make it without the other. I don’t think I could handle it.
The house is quieter. Hilda happened to be there, and we had a small ceremony in their memory, spent some time remembering the good times with them. Some of those memories, I’ll never forget. Others, maybe forgetting them might be a good idea.
I was right, though. I wasn’t ready to lose them, and now I’m not sure what to do.
Juno didn’t take it very well. She was rather close with her grandmothers, and these are the first deaths in the family to directly impact her. The others, the cousins and distant aunts, she heard about them, but didn’t really know what that meant, I think.
I don’t know what to tell her. I think maybe nothing I can say could make anything better. I don’t know what’s after this. I don’t know if someday we’ll see each other again. It seems silly to say something like that when you don’t know for sure if it’s true or not.
I try not to lie to my daughter.
Grandfather came by. He’s outlived yet another child of his. Aunt Freya will last forever, it feels like, so he probably won’t outlive her at least, but still. Everyone he’s ever loved very deeply is gone now. It’s no wonder he’s over here a lot. Of course he is. We’re all he has left.
I used to think I wanted to be like him when I grow up. I don’t think I do. I couldn’t stand being alone, I think, not like he has, not as well as he has. Maybe for a short period, it’d almost be relieving, but then it’d just be depressing.
One thing I’m sure of, I’ll probably never get used to having this many ghosts around. The sheer force of them is starting to make my head hurt.
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Notes: He is not gloomy idk why he’s coming out so depressing.
