Death...

[sgt.null]

I didn't want to put this in How You Feeling so those who wish to avoid this can do so.

Back in 1973 my family (mom, dad, older brother, me, younger sister, younger brother) moved to Concord, New Hampshire. I was 5. Younger siblings were 3 & 1.
Lived in a duplex. Next door was the Foster family. Andy & Ann (parents) daughter Kim and son Carey.

My dad worked part time with Andy cleaning clinics. Carey was my sister's age. At some point the two had a mock wedding. We still tease my sister about it almost 45 years later.

Found out Carey died yesterday. No details. But we did find a few stories of his arrests over the years for public intoxication and assaulting his mother. His parents divorced years ago.

Oddly enough in my 20's I looked at an apartment to rent. Turns out Carey and his mom had just been evicted from there. I saw pictures of them and asked.

I know its the human condition. We just lost Julie's sister.

But I never knew Carey as an adult. I still picture the kid who "married" my sister. We all lose people. I know. I hardly knew him.

But I still see him as a kid. My dad and younger brother were still alive. All my grandparents were still living. The two kids I went to grade school with who grew up and killed themselves were still alive. The kid who I went to school with who died of an allergic reaction was still alive.

I want to hold that moment but I can't. I want to be a kid lying on my back looking up at the church steeple, watching the sky move past. Maybe someday I'll do that again.

[Menolly]

Baruch Dayen Ha'Emet.
May you find comfort with all the mourners of Zion, sarge.

[Savor Dam]

Sorry for the loss of your childhood friend and your sister's early crush...much less the others lost along the way. Ouch!

On the broader topic, my mind goes to Paul Simon lyrics:

I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty-two now, but I won't be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand

Once my heart was filled with the love of a girl
I held her close, but she faded in the night
Like a poem I meant to write
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand

I threw a pebble in a brook
And watched the ripples run away
And they never made a sound
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither with the wind
And they crumble in your hand

Hello, hello, hello, hello
Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye
That's all there is
And the leaves that are green turn to brown

[sgt.null]

Thank you both.

[Fist and Faith]

Thank you for that post, sgt. Sorry for your, and all of our, loss of innocence.

And sorry about Julie's sister.

[sgt.null]

Thank you Fist

[SoulBiter]

Its is inevitable that death finds us all.

But I hear ya. I have lost many good friends over the years, some in car accidents, a couple from heart disease. It was disconcerting when the realization hit me that my grandparents on both sides, my parents, and all but one uncle are all gone. I have one friend since HS that I still connect with through email (we visit now and again).

The song that I play the most when I think of them is Pink Floyd. Wish you were here.

[Skyweir]

I love Wish You Were Here and I’m so sorry to read of your losses.

Death DOES find us all … and it’s real hard on the living.

My husband and I have no parents still living. My first experience of death was in my teenage years - when my best friend died after being run down by a drunk driver.

We’d just hung out together and an uncle came round to deliver the news - and I collapsed - lost my legs, all semblance of strength & sinew lol and I just hit the deck in shock.

That was a hard pill to swallow … he was Catholic and going to his funeral was my first time in a Catholic church.

He was Irish and his family had a wake - and they invited the fucking guy who robbed their child of a future. They were generous and kind to him - far more than I could muster - though tbf I was a teenager.

Losing my best mate changed everything for me - and ultimately led me to the eager embrace of religion as I desperately sought meaning for it all.

Death has attended a large part of my life (personally & professionally) - and it’s a hard pill to swallow but it will come for us all

Love to you and Jules

[Avatar]

Ah, sorry to hear Sarge.

Today was my mother's birthday and it was a shock to realise that she's been dead for 15 years.

Intimations of our own mortality and all that.

Death makes angels of us all, and give us wings where once we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Wishing comfort, peace, and strength to you, Sarge. I can relate to wanting to go back to those moments of togetherness and wanting to hold onto them for as long as possible.

[Fist and Faith]

Just spent two weeks in Colorado on vacation. Saw two friends from high school who I haven't seen in about 37 years.

[sgt.null]

My dad has been gone 18 and half years. Julie's for 15. Her mom for 3 years.

Thanks to those who offered such.

My recent poems reflect my musings on death.

[Cagliostro]

Yeah, it seems I keep hearing of people I know dying, from grade school friends to high school and such, and as I am staring death in the face lately, I'm hoping for opportunities to see people that have meant a lot to me. Some have come to visit, which has been great.

My condolences.

[Avatar]

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, huh?

--A

[Damelon]

Sorry for your loss, Sarge.

I went through something similar last week. My best friend's sister passed away in June. They had the memorial and funeral last week. She was 20 years older than my friend and had the same disease her father had 30 years ago, Alzheimer's. Brought back a lot of old memories, some sad, but I did have a good story to tell of her at the post-funeral lunch.

[sgt.null]

Sorry to hear that John.

[peter]

The death of other people, including people we have known, finds us and impacts upon us in different (and sometimes surprising) ways. Sometimes we are effected by a death of someone we have known only slightly, very deeply and in a manner we find hard to understand. But we are never found by our own deaths, or indeed effected by them. We are long gone by this point and it is for others to feel the effect of this.

Depending on what you believe, there will be a difference in how you perceive this, the greatest of all transitions (the mirror image of the one that gave you the gift/curse of independent being in the first place); for some it will be the end of all things, for others the beginning. Each must decide for themselves how they are going to see this; how they approach and encounter it is outwith their control and no responsibility can attach to them for it.

[sgt.null]

damn, I do get morbid.

[SoulBiter]

Its is inevitable that death finds us all.

But I hear ya. I have lost many good friends over the years, some in car accidents, a couple from heart disease. It was disconcerting when the realization hit me that my grandparents on both sides, my parents, and all but one uncle are all gone. I have one friend since HS that I still connect with through email (we visit now and again).

Well my Uncle passed away the other day. That was the last of what I would have considered our patriarchs and matriarchs from when I was a kid.

[Fist and Faith]

Sorry to hear that. Tough to lose the last of a generation.