Habeas Corpus, Beamtenum

I am getting the information about Steve's death and funeral second- and third- and sometimes even fourth-hand. It is very frustrating.

What seems clear is that there have been more delays; his body is still in Germany, it's been embalmed, identified, paperwork completed and translated, and that his body may be transported only by Lufthansa, which doesn't fly directly to Minneapolis. There have been paperwork holdups and bureaucratic SNAFUs: some of this is due to the inter-national nature of the death and the fact that Steve's passport was invalid; part of it may be the fault of the US State Departmentand; part of it just bad luck, as it occured outside of a major city and involved two German holidays, and some of this is due to local, German Beamte.

Very frustrating.

It makes me angry really when I think about his poor ma, having to deal with this Mickey Mouse horseshit on top of years and years of anguish and worry about Steve--is he safe? will he go to prison? will he overdose? is he ever happy? will he ever be happy? is he hurting himself? will someone kill him?

Maybe she is just in shock, a mixture of anguish and trauma suspended in a gelatin of overload.

I don't know really know her but I like her, I guess because in the social contexts I've seen her she has been kind, feisty in the eyes (I mean there is active life and intelligence in her eyes) and the only other non-Republican in the room.

And now her boy died. The bad thing that she must have spent a million calories worrying over has come to pass; her guts finally did get torn out.