Ω

Omega (uppercase Ω, lowercase ω) is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" (ō mega, mega meaning 'great'), as opposed to Omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning "little").[1] This name is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō (ὦ), whereas the Omicron was called ou (οὖ).[2] The form of the lowercase letter derives from a double omicron, which came to be written open at the top.
Phonetically, the Ancient Greek Ω is a long o, similar to the vowel of English ocean. For example, the English ocean, derives from the Greek ωκεανός. It is transcribed ō or simply o. In Modern Greek Ω also sounds like a long o, though not so clear in everyday speech.
Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) is often used to denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set, in contrast to Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the New Testament book of Revelation, God is declared to be the "alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last".[3]
Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet. See omega (Cyrillic) (Ѡ, ѡ). A Raetic variant is at the origin of Elder Futhark ᛟ.


Also - The name of my home town. On a wooded stretch of black top snaking through the farmland's dusty hide is teh hamlet of Omega, Georgia. Sparsely populated and vaguely incorporated this is the location of my family's "farm". I use farm in a loose context, we don't grow things there really other than resentment and distance. But last time I was there my young cousins had a small menagerie of animals and there is still about eighty head of cattle, great herbiviouracious lawn mowers grazing the rolling pasture land. Land so disputed amongst my family that it ripped asunder our family long before my grandfather's corpse was cold. Actually about two years before he had physically abandoned this mortal coil. He was stricken with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's Disease, Maladie de Charcot or motor neurone disease) is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement. The disorder causes muscle weakness and atrophy throughout the body as both the upper and lower motor neurons degenerate and die, ceasing to send messages to muscles. Unable to function, the muscles gradually weaken, atrophy, and develop fasciculations (twitches) because of denervation. Eventually, the brain completely loses its ability to initiate and control voluntary movement. The disease does not necessarily debilitate the patient's mental functioning in the same manner as Alzheimer's disease or other neurological conditions. Rather, those suffering advanced stages of the disease may retain the same memories, personality, and intelligence they had before its onset. He did not. He in addition had severe dementia which by turn left him confused, lethargic, and at times violent. I had a moment while recently watching 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle's masterful 28 Days Later when a starving member of the infected (they aren't quite Zombies) is gnawing glassy eyed at the camera and I flashed back to my grandfather's wild eyes. I remember at night, locked via padlock within the walls of his home, falling asleep to the whirs and wheezes of his oxygen and feeding machine, and to the sobs of my Grandmother , who was so unprepared to to handle his decline and death. I remember Him beating cans of soup against the lock on the door. I remember the family not heading my constant pleas with them to take hi keys away in the early days, until standing in the living room barefoot, the white burber rug scratching the bottoms of my feet, the phone ringing. My mother's face, so saddened by time, no stricken alive with fear. He'd had an accident. He was alright but. The writing on the wall had been ignored. I remember so many things and yet I am the one robbed of so many memories, by illness, by God, by an overdose of Lithium that to this day has riddled my childhood memories with holes. I remember standing at his bedside bleary eyed, sweating. It was four in the morning my grandmother and I took turns sleeping yet we were both awake. She was in the kitchen eating , crying again, watching her televangelist praying for a salvation that just would not come. I remember. I remember holding a pillow over him and begging god for the forgiveness of my actions and the strength to carry through, but none came. I wanted to smother him. Not to end his suffering, well perhaps in part but to free my Grandmother. I wanted to set her free like Noah set free a dove, to find us a new land to make out lives over. I wanted to be free, Free of the fighting, Free of the sickness, free of the death, the heat the guilt, the longing, the stifling overwhelming sense of nothingness that dripped from the pours of every broken man woman and child there. The air there was humid and heavy with the stink of extinguished dreams. Omega. The end. Hope could we have hope and see beyond the horizon in a place who's name means the end. Nine moths after that night, my grandfather died in his sleep peacefully, my grandmother sleeping next to him in a separate bed, robbed even of his last warm. He'd be restless that night. Her last words to him were a soft cooing plea. "Shh go to sleep , I love you , everything will be better in the morning. "

She never recovered from his death. She died from still-suspicious circumstances while being treated for cancer 18 months later. She concealed her symptoms from us while caring for my grandfather.
I fled to North Carolina, then ultimately to Portland Oregon, perennial home of starting over.
I wonder sometimes if we both are finally free.

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