We Are Mortal After All

This is one I wrote several months ago, but never posted.  Since I have another one almost ready to post, I thought I should get this one out of "draft" mode and get it posted.  Yes, this one is kind of morbid and depressing. You have been warned.

 

 

March often finds me thinking, sometimes too much, about getting older. Guess that's what birthdays do to us. But this year, for some reason, it's really hitting me that so many people I have known are dead. (Nope, didn't use the nice form, "have passed away.") It isn't something I thought about much when I was younger, but then again, not as many people had up and vanished on me.

 

 

The most recent "shock" was a double-hit, so to speak. One of the assistant U.S. attorneys died suddenly one weekend. Then I learned the last church choir director I sang with died suddenly, apparently from heart attacks. OK, both were in their mid-sixties, but that doesn't seem as old as it did when I was 20.

 

 

Then I started thinking. Three people from the probation office here in Denver have died since I have been working here. One from throat cancer, one from MS, and another also thought to be a heart attack. That's three people in a fairly small population. Makes me wonder if this occupation is more hazardous to our health than we originally thought. I guess being a judge isn't any better. We lost an amazing, kind judge just a couple of years after he was appointed, also cancer. And one of my favorite judges died shortly after he retired. Maybe that's a real lesson that we should retire as soon as we can and enjoy life before we die.

 

Then I remembered that two people I knew from working with probation and parole in Missouri are also gone. Another one from cancer and one from a highway accident.

People I dated... now that's a shocker. Four guys (I hesitate to say "men" not sure they really grew up) I dated are dead. No, wasn't my fault, it was a long time ago that I last saw any of them. Honest!

It's easier to accept death when the person is elderly, infirm, in pain.  It's easier to accept death when it's a generation older that you are.  We expect the grandparents' generation to pass.  Then we expect our parents' generation to pass.  But when it hits your own age group, friends, cousins, and younger, it doesn't seem right.  It isn't so easy to accept when it's younger people, particularly children. Some of my relatives have lost children, and it just doesn't seem real or possible that those things happen. But they do.

Where is this going? I've been thinking I should let people know they are important to me, that I care about them. We really don't know how long we get to "keep" people in our lives. Mom always said you should never go to bed angry at someone because you would never know if you would have the opportunity to "make it right" with them. I think I need to take that advice.