h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I’ve buried 4 people this year; two relatives, an old family friend, and a recently found friend. By today’s standards, only one of them could have been considered old. When you are old, you are expected to die. When you are ‘almost’ old, it is a surprise. When you are ‘late-middle’ age it is a shame. But when you are young, it is a tragedy.

Leah was only forty. She was the mother of four grown girls and numerous grandchildren. She married Heath three years ago. She should have been a mother again. He should have been a father. Instead, he buried her today. He went off to work last Friday, leaving Leah asleep in their bed. He came home again to find her dead. Leah was almost nine months pregnant. I don’t know what happened to the baby. I don’t know how to ask. There was no mention of a fifth child surviving her in the obituary notice. Barton said it was obvious she was still pregnant. I wouldn’t ‘see’ that.

When I attended funeral number three, just last week, I remarked to my boss that I thought the reason I had so many friends that were younger than I was because my contemporaries and older friends seemed to be dying too quickly, four in four years. I couldn’t handle any more funerals.

Then I found out you don’t have to be old to die. Not that I didn’t know that before. I have two friends who are young. Each time the phone rings, I expect it is that final call. Neither of them, even with modern medical technology will make it to middle age. I don’t know what phone call will be harder to handle. One is an old friend…a friend of a friend. The other is a newer friend…a friendship ‘strengthened’ by having the same medical condition as Barton-and henceforth, ultimately the same end.

I am surrounded by death and dying. I see how precious live really is.

I saw Leah there, in the coffin. I could see her breathing and trying to sit up. I couldn’t say anything. I knew she was dead, but she wasn’t. She still lived on in the hearts and minds of those who knew her. She was with her child and her father who had crossed over several months before. She wanted to tell us that, but she couldn’t There wasn’t breath left and she couldn’t rise. So she rested peacefully.

Then it wasn’t Leah lying there. It was a succession of friends, some dead and some still alive. It was Leah. It was Annette. It was Craig. It was Bonnie. It was Angel. It was Barton. And there I stood. Seeing them all together and wishing I was with them. Hating the time we would have to be apart, but knowing we would be together again. Then Merlin came along and rested his head in my lap, gave me a quick slurp, looked up at me with his eyes that weren’t filled with pain and I knew that it was a good place.

But life goes on. We grow older, surrounded less and less by family and friends. One by one, they go to join the ones who have gone before. We learn to cope. We conquer our frustrations. We hid our tears. And then our time comes. Once again reunited. Forever.

Waiting is.

Thanks for writing this Richenda. This is the sort of thing I really don't know what to say about. Death is such an enormous thing...

My sweetest, my dearest friend, mother earth, provider of the healing waters, feeder of hungry souls.

"Life is a sexualy transmitted desease, that is invaribly fatal"
-Rev. Dr. Barbara Edgecombe

Do not be affraid, I am not. Life is really not about how much time we do or do not have. It is really about those moments, eched in time, when we touch each other in ways that defy description. Loving good ways,and the universe rejoices. Be it the moment a bowl of hand hewen soup, is set before a person hungry for more than food, or a child puts out a hand and says "I can dance, if you help" and without hesitation is joined in revelry. It is the touch of a mother when her child cries, the caress of a lover in a quite moment, the friend who waits in silent anticipation as you make that long crawl up the hill, knowing you must do it yourself, or be defeated. So she sits and waits, and allowes you to bloody your knees, while stopping those who would come to "Help", so you can consentrate on fighting those deamonds. She sees past the outside struggle to the inner need, and in her silence is fighting the war with you.
It is the anphibial kiss of a cotton frog. the loving slurp of a snake tounge dog. A childs laughter, a cats caress, a sunset, a rainstorm on a summer day, the times when you dance like no one is watching...
This is life. Long or short, this is life. I have managed to pack into 35 years, all of these things and more. And if I should discorporate tommorrow, these things haven't changed, I haven't left, only altered my point of view. Think outside the box.
my love,
Angel

Someday I will be able to reply. Someday I will be able to read what you wrote with clear eyes rather than those filled with tears. Someday. But not yet.