In the last six months I have heard of ten deaths. Of course, one of them is my mother, and many of these recent announcements are not of people I know, but are, for instance, parents of friends, close friends of friends, et cetera. Today I heard the tenth, my friend and former colleague, Marion Trost.
My brother suggested I'm more sensitive to deaths given recent the loss of our mother. This is probably true, but doesn't seem to account for the significant number of people telling me they are losing the people close to them. A friend suggested I was reaching a stage of life where an older generation is dying out. This also may be true, but doesn't account for Marion, or the death of a 21-year old who has been a close friend of my housekeeper, or the death of my friend's near-40 year old best friend from cervical cancer.
There's not much to say, I'm just hoping people would slow down on the dying for a while. I look forward to a good winter.
3 comments:
Kind of a blunt way of asking, of the people you know who died, how many of them lived great lives? I know your mom did, from reading your blog, but do you know the life stories of the others?
My reason for asking: when people die around me, it screws me up. I don't like to think about it, or I just cry a lot. I cried for about 15 minutes straight when I found out Carl Sagan died... that's a long time to cry for me. But thinking about the great lives people had (I get to decide what is great) takes my mind off the death and gets me interested in the other people around me still in my life.
We too have had too many people pass away this year. While it can get awfully depressing, perhaps it can help focus on enjoying life to the utmost. Life is far too fragile to take it for granted.
Hopefully, the new year will bring peace to us all.
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