As of late, I find myself somewhat
obsessed with death. Not in some unnatural way mind you. I guess a
better description is that death has taken great interest in hanging
around me. So of course I have taken great interest in return.
Naturally.
As usual with the specter... no spectre
(I like that spelling better...). As usual when the spectre of death
hangs around, it brings many things with it. Usually those things
are not positive. For me it has brought on a bit of surliness, less
ready smiles, I am more withdrawn, a little more extreme. Some days
I just plain old require solitude.
You see death has taken a toll on me
recently. As I write this, I still can't fully measure what I have
lost. Mostly because I can't see things from an objective
perspective. At this point I don't want to understand. I don't want
things to make sense. I just want death to go away for a good long
time. I know people don't come back, so I don't really want that.
But I do want that spectre to realize that it is not being very fair
to me. Far be it from me to wish such a thing on someone else. But
when dealing with such, that is sometimes how things go. “If not
you, then who?” seems to be the question. My answer is “NOT DAMN
ME! Come back when you have evened things out EVERYWHERE!” I know
how that looks. But then again, pain doesn't give a damn how things
look.
I guess I should take a minute and give
a bit of backstory. I find that context tends to help paint the
picture.
Two days before Thanksgiving, the phone
rings. I think nothing of it since I was the farthest from the phone
at the time. Then I hear “Nooooo!”. I have only heard that once
before in my life. Fear fills my insides like there was previously a
vacuum there. Just as it did the first time. The questions “What?”
“Who?”, “Where?”, “When?” and “How?” all explode in
my mind at the same time. Then I hear “Don't tell me that!”.
Now every possible alarm bell is going off. At this point I know the
relationship between the caller and the callee. I also know it is
VERY bad news. The list suddenly narrows itself down to a 4 year old
girl and a 65 year old woman. I am desperate for information at this
point and am on the verge of knocking my wife over and ripping the
phone out of her hand. Instead I try to concentrate on calming
myself before my heart thundered itself right out of my chest. And
then “Please don't make me tell this man that!”. The odds on the
4 year old suddenly dropped to near nil. My wife finally composed
herself enough to realize that I was waiting on confirmation that my
mother had passed. All of those questions I had were either answered
buy that or became unimportant because “Why?” was the only one I
cared about at that moment. Over the next several hours I spent time
with a lot of sad and shocked family members. You see, my mother had
some health issues, but she wasn't ill. She was watching TV as she
always did and folk were coming and going. My nephew went to the
store to get them some snacks and was coming back to massage her legs
as she asked. My sister returned home less than 10 minutes after he
left and she was gone. And my life changed. Those next few hours
was the first time I have ever felt alone in the company of people.
She was laid to rest with a wonderful memorial service. Her ashes
will be spread at her favorite park either on her next birthday or
around the 4th of July during our annual family picnic.
Fast forward to the end of January. I
am at work during a lull in the action. I log onto Facebook to see
what is happening. I get an instant message from a great aunt that I
barely see online. She tells me to call her. The fact that she
contacted me that way told me it was something of great import, so I
called her immediately. She infomed me that my Uncle Frankie had
passed the night before. A sad event to be sure but not unexpected.
He was 81 and had some heart problems for a while. Of course it was
too soon for me. I mustered up the strength to make one more call
and grabbed my cell phone. I went to a little used spot in the
building where cell reception was better and privacy was higher. I
called my wife to give her the bad news with a ton of tears in my
eyes. He was one of her favorites in my family. She didn't take it
well either.
Fast forward to the end of March. I am
working from home early one Monday. I get a call from my cousin, who
was like my brother while growing up. I hadn't heard from him in a
while because as many of you know, I am part hermit. And other such
grown folk stuff too. So we chit chat for a minute or three. Then
he says to me, “I was calling to ask if you could be a pall
bearer”. My immediate reply was “Who, what, when, what?!?!?”.
His reply was “Oh, you didn't know! Dad passed on Saturday.” I
didn't know because I was still a little down and had not been to the
family page on Facebook or the family website on Ancestry.com. My
sister also neglected to pass the word on. I told him that “I
could do no less for him and that it would be my great honor to do
so.” This really messed up my day and no work would get done. You
see this man was like my other father. I was the salt in his salt
and pepper twins. He was also one of my mother's favorite cousins.
Needless to say, I was pretty messed up. My wife was rather fond of
him and his wife. Again, not news she took well. The depression I
had been running from for the last few months found me, and it held
on tight.
Rewind to mid March. I read a FB post
about a cousin from my father's side. He was in hospice for cancer.
I called his brother to find out what was going on. We talked for a
few minutes. I got caught up on cuz' situation. By this time I was
running that losing race with depression. I wasn't able to bring
myself to call Auntie though. Fast forward to Mid April. I run
across another FB post about the cousin I talked to on the phone. It
seems he had a stroke and was in the hospital with little to no
memory of anyone. AND another cousin was in ICU because an asthma
attack nearly took him out. A couple of days later the stroke
patient has recovered some memory and function. The asthma patient
improves enough to leave ICU. A few days after that my sister
remembers to call. The cousin in hospice passed early that morning,
his brother was still in the hospital recovering from the stroke AND
their mother was admitted to the hospital due to stress and other
complications.
Today is the day before my cousin's
home going service. For me, this will be the fourth time in five
months. Let me restate that. Four funerals in five months with two
near misses. Obviously I am not doing that cool. To the point that
I let slip my own self discipline and desire to be better. Some days
I win, some days I lose. But I shall still strive until I no longer
have the ability. I will get back on my meds and stay on schedule.
I will get back on my bike and ride like I am young again. I will
try that damned Insanity workout again! I gotta say though, that
shit was hard!!! I must be a glutton for punishment because I liked
it. My old, fat body didn't necessarily agree with the abuse and I
had to wave off before I snapped something. But I will be back. And
I will give myself a better diet and a better attitude.
I promised myself I would not write
depressing stuff here again. But I needed to let this out. And I
had to something to honor Loraine, Charlie, Donald and Layman. I
don't think I can get better without having done so.
I ain't promising that I am back. But
I am removing that dumb promise to myself. When I fell of writing
here, I fell off having that therapy. I thought it was because
things felt better. But I do this to make things better. Every
time...
