Death

I knew a young man who died a little while back.

At a time of a death there is usually a head long rush to honor the individual who has died no matter who he was, or how he lived. I know some real jerks who have died  - or at least they were jerks to me.  But hey, even Al Capone had a mother right?

This young man who died was no different than any young man, he was struggling to sort out his life, make sense of the world, and get on with the business of living. There was nothing glorious about his death or for that matter his life. He was torn from the world too young (29 or so) and much as my own life these days,  he was getting by, and trying to figure out how he could manage getting by better down the road. And in preparation for getting ready to attend a funeral, as I went about the business of thinking about his life and his time in the world, (as I always do when a death occurs near me),  something struck me.

He was survived by both his parents.

And that is just, well, wrong. Absolute right is a notion that I have explored and toyed with and given up on a long time ago. But the thought that you could die and be survived by both parents seems wholly unnatural, it just seems very wrong. As I said, I'm long since grown out of my beliefs of absolute right and wrong  - But the wrongness of outliving you children is still there.

And it wont leave.

And I can't reconcile with it.

 I found myself unable to even think straight when meeting the boy's father and mother. I desperately wanted to say something, anything, but could find nothing but awkward fumbling speech not worth repeating here. It made and still makes me very sad because Josh and his parents both deserved better. And now much much later I am still sad and lost because I still have no rational for it.  I have spoken to people about it but its eating away at my mind. How can you console or even try to console the inconsolable?  If one of my girls were to be taken from me I have no idea how I could manage it. I would rather die myself.




I wrote those words months ago thinking that I would come back to this and find a way to close off this blog entry and make sense of things.

I still have none.

I will have to live with the notion that to search for meaning and logic in a random world is, in and of itself, not natural. The balance must come from within. I'm just not sure I know where to find it. The first death of a close friend that occurred in my life happened years ago while I was in Greenwood Nova Scotia. It was a close friend I had known and worked alongside for some of the most important moments of my life.  I still think of it often and I make it a point visit my friends grave every year. (He is buried there) He too was survived by both his parents. And I could even speak to them I just hugged them and blubbered something that to this day I cant even remember. I never made sense of it then and still struggle to make sense of it now. But I go every year to "visit" him. I talk to myself next to a headstone or, if people are nearby, just take a few minutes and "speak" words  in my head as if Scottie could hear me. Maybe that's the point. He is with me as long as I'm speaking to him. He isn't dead just not here.... Maybe that can put some close on it....

Maybe....?     ?