Death

La Mort du Fossoyeur - Carlos Schwabe
(Source)

My first real exposure to death was when I was a senior in high school. While getting ready for school one morning, our cat, Tommy, walked into my room and peed on the carpet. He was embarrassed about it, I was just a little miffed. Mom handled the mess, and off to school I went.

When I came home Tommy was gone.

Seems that he'd continued to act strangely, peeing everywhere and yowling. Tommy was very fastidious and he almost never yowled. Dad was called, he came home and took Tommy to the vet. Tommy didn't come home alive. Seems his kidneys were failing, rapidly.

"Any hope?", my dad wanted to know. The vet just shook his head.

Well, I was stunned. Not sad, not angry, just stunned. We'd had Tommy since I was a little boy, Tommy didn't seem that old. But looking back on it, Tommy was getting up there. But there was a big hole where that old furry guy used to be.

It wasn't long before there was a new kitten in the house. We missed Tommy, but we moved on. I remember that old black cat to this day, and yes, I still miss him.

But the next year it was off to college, a military school it was, at Christmas my paternal grandmother thought it would be neat if I wore my dress uniform for Christmas. So I did. She was very appreciative, couldn't say enough nice things about how good I looked in uniform, this mind you while Vietnam was still going on. Winding down, but American boys were still coming home in boxes.

But Gram was old school. Her three sons had all gone off to war. My two male cousins had also worn the uniform, one in Vietnam. To her, wearing the uniform was something you were supposed to do. Her favorite uncle had been killed in World War I, but to a Scot, duty was duty. At least it was in those days.

Before my freshman year was over, my grandmother was gone. It was sudden, damned sudden. She was gone before I could get home.

Stunned. Again. Life, because of death, was starting to feel pretty nasty.

My parents insisted that I go to the funeral home for visiting hours. I flat out refused. Mom was pretty upset, Dad was pretty angry. I mean, he'd just lost his mother and now here was his oldest son refusing to go visit her.

"Dad. That's not Grammie over there. I don't want to have a mental image of that lady for the rest of my life, dead, lying in a coffin. I want to remember her alive, smiling, baking cookies, yelling at Grampa. Talking to us in that soft Scottish accent of hers which had never quite gone away even after decades of being an American. I won't go, I'm sorry, but there it is."

While Dad was still a bit mad, he understood and didn't press the issue.

So Death had brushed past me twice, before I was 19 years old. But I didn't see Tommy dead, I didn't see my grandmother dead. I still see them in my mind's eye, alive. Forever the age at which I last saw them.

Since then Death has been around more often, far more often than I care for. But as I age, I know it's part of the cycle. We're born, we live, we die. It's inevitable.

What comes after this life, I can't know with any certainty. My buddy Joe Welsh insisted there was nothing, once the curtain came down that was it. Worm food as he put it, less than a year before he himself died. One way or another Joe has had the great question answered. I hope he was wrong. I really do.

I don't know why I'm in this blue funk today. Perhaps it's the news of another high school classmate passing. Cancer, just a few days before his 64th birthday. I played football with him, we weren't buddies, not by any stretch of the imagination. But he was a teammate, a really good athlete and a decent fellow. He's not the first of my class to die, heck there were a few who died shortly after high school. Accidents, disease, like I told an old friend of mine when the doctors thought that I had cancer (it wasn't), "Heck, Fred, we all have to die of something." I'm still here. Fred died back in 2008.

Death comes for us all. Seven sailors last month, fifteen Marines and one sailor just the other day, all dead long before they could reasonably expect to die. Even in the military you don't really think about it, death is something that happens to other people, in other units. Not to you and yours.

Until it does.

Damn.

All Things Must Pass

George Harrison

Sunrise doesn't last all morning

A cloudburst doesn't last all day

Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning

It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

Sunset doesn't last all evening

A mind can blow those clouds away

After all this, my love is up and must be leaving

It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

None of life's strings can last

So, I must be on my way

And face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night-time

In the morning it will fade away

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time

It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

All things must pass away