Death.
In this week alone I've experienced three of its aspects. Death by old age. Death by disease. Death by accident.
I've attended three funerals this past week -- well, two funerals and a viewing. Thoughts OF death and ABOUT death have been foremost in my mind.
. . .
Grey's grandmother passed away. She was in her 80's. I think of this as a death due to old age even though one could argue that point -- she was ill, after all -- but to me, old age was a major contributing factor. Time's path was winding down for her and she knew she didn't have many years left to her. She could feel the stillness creeping up. She was tired. She may have even welcomed it.
My ex-mother in law passed away. Doctors had given her a few more months to live a few weeks ago but she suddenly took a turn for the worse. Within three days, she was dead. The disease she had -- cancer, long incubating or perhaps simply stagnant -- rose up like a oxygen-fed fire and swept through her. Organs shut down. Systems faltered. Every breath was a labor. In her lucid moments she said she was miserable. Still, she wasn't ready. She knew what was to come but she was going to choose to fight. It didn't give her the chance to even shore up for the battle.
My friend Queen's 45-yr old brother passed away. No one will ever really know what happened, they'll just be able to piece suppositions together from the fragments of evidence strewn around the accident site. Perhaps he fell asleep at the wheel, perhaps he was tired and angry and going too fast around a corner in the wee morning hours. He was just gone, like that, no warning. No time to tell anyone his thoughts or wishes or desires. No time to say goodbye. He simply disappeared.
. . .
What does it all mean, really?
((Song: "Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks. Lyrics here:
http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/seasonsi.htm ))
