Death Hits Hard

Death hits hard, not only for the dying, but for those of us still alive. I’m pretty sure our understanding of death, our fear of it, changes the way we live.

For example, not long ago I was driving my car down an Ottawa street and pulled over, parking alongside a house on a residential street. I had received a text message from a relative and needed to return it. I sat motionless in the driver’s seat, my car idling, my head bowed looking at my smart phone, my thumbs working furiously. I was startled by a tapping on the passenger side window. It scared me. A man was crouched beside my car, smiling broadly. I rolled down the window.

‘SORRY,” he said very loudly. “I SAW YOU SITTING HER FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOWN AND HAD TO COME OUT AND CHECK ON YOU.”

“Thanks, I’m fine. Just texting. I thought I’d be safe for a change and pull over.”

“NO, HELL, DON’T APOLOGIZE. I COULDN’T HELP BUT CHECK ON YOU. SEE I USED TO LIVE OVER BY THE PARK. HAD A HOUSE OVER THERE, AND ONE DAY I WAS OUT IN MY YARD AND SAW AN OLD GUY SITTING IN HIS CAR REAL STILL , LIKE YOU, AND I JUST FIGURED, YOU KNOW, HE’S READING, OR WATCHING HIS GRAND KIDS PLAY ON THE SWINGS AND I DIDN’T THINK NOTHING OF IT.”

I wanted to finish my text but listened politely.

“AND THEN, LATER IN THE DAY, I REALIZED HE WAS STILL SITTING THERE! HADN’T MOVED! AND SO I WENT ON OVER THERE AND WOULDN’T YOU KNOW…”

“He was dead?”

“YOU GUESSED IT. DEADER THAN A FREAKIN DOORNAIL, RIGHT THERE ON THE STREET!!!” He said that even louder than capital letters can express.

“SHOOK ME UP I’LL TELL YOU. I DIDN’T HAVE A CELL PHONE, SO I TOLD THE KIDS IN THE PARK TO JUST KEEP PLAYING AND I WENT IN THE HOUSE AND CALLED THE POLICE. THEN I KEPT THE KIDS AWAY AS THEY GOT THE, YOU KNOW, AMBULANCE AND STUFF.”

“That must have been quite a shock.”

“YOU’RE NOT KIDDING IT WAS QUITE A SHOCK. I DON’T THINK I’VE BEEN THE SAME SINCE. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I COULD TELL RIGHT AWAY HE WAS DEAD. I’D NEVER SEEN A DEAD PERSON, A REAL HUMAN BEING, BUT THERE WAS NO DOUBT I’M TELLING YOU. HE MUST HAVE BEEN DEAD ONLY A COUPLE HOURS OR MORE BUT I’M HERE TO TELL YOU HE WAS DEFINITELY GONE.”

“Well I’ll be gone in just a few minutes here myself, except I’m going to drive away. Sorry to bring up bad memories, but as you can see, I’m still breathing.”

The man at my car window laughed. He was a long good bye kind of a guy. He repeated parts of the same story just told, an abbreviated version, and laughed some more. He proved hard to get rid of. That’s an annoying habit, and one I hope I don’t fall into as time stretches out in the years to come. But finally he walked back to his house, I finished my text, and that was that. But it turned out to be an omen for things to come.

I’m sixty two. I’ll be sixty three in August. But it’s funny how our definition of old changes as we age. I’m learning about deaths in our community first now on Face Book. I don’t know what to think about that. It’s much the same as opening the newspaper to the obituary section and having the news of an old friend’s death slap you in the face, but there’s something creepy about seeing the news on your phone. Maybe I’ll get used to it. The Face Book post I first saw was from an old friend’s daughter, referring to missing her father. She was our first babysitter after our daughter was born. She’s now in her forties. And while I used to attend funeral services to console my friends who lost their parents, I’m now attending the funerals of friends. There’s a very big difference. My friends are like me.

The man whose funeral I attended died accidentally and alone in his home, his death discovered a short time later. He was sixty three. That’s so young. When I was moved up into the YSB office from a caseworker’s position, he took my place as the counselor in Ottawa. He had a great way with kids, and parents, and later used those same skills to work for the city enforcing building and other municipal codes. He was tactful. He spoke to people in a kind way. And he enjoyed life very much. Too much sometimes. He had a spark. And now he and that spark are gone.

Tuesday night I was in the shack listening to music and before I went into the house I checked my phone and found yet another fatal Face Book post. It was a post written by a young man, shared by his father, lamenting the loss of his grandmother. His grandmother was one of my first board presidents when I became director of YSB. I met her three years earlier when I first came to work at the agency. She was a single mother raising a family of four kids, which included twin junior high girls, and working very hard to make ends meet. No one would have blamed her if she said she didn’t have time to do charity work but she did it anyway. She served as a volunteer on this county’s first mental health board, was a charter member of YSB’s first board of directors, and went on to help United Way immensely. She was smart. She had drive and tenacity. She died suddenly, also alone in her home, of an acute condition still undetermined. She was seventy one. I now count that as very young also.

I am hungry for many more years of life. Just as I am anxious for this spring to arrive I am equally anticipating many more springs. I’d take twenty more or so, and more if I can retain enough brain cells to think and write. I’ll even live through winters like the last one to be alive for twenty more springs. In an attempt to avoid death I’ve finally heeded all the dire warnings and pulled over to text, just as I quit smoking thirty years ago and recently got serious about taking my cholesterol medication every day. I want to live a lot longer. I go so far as to expect to, as I’m sure my friends did. But in a flash they are gone.

It’s not that I saw these friends every day. I didn’t at all. Our lives took different paths. But we had a sort of bond because we worked together and knew each other in good ways. Whenever I saw either of my recently departed friends we would take time to talk, and catch up. We always talked about our families. I think we all cared deeply about our own kids, just as we cared about the kids YSB served. Couple of times a year we would run into each other and talk. When we last talked we didn’t know we would never talk again.

So it’s not that I’ll especially miss the contact with my recently departed, because it was so infrequent. It’s that the community seems now to be different without them. That may be a silly sentiment, and I don’t exactly know how to explain it, but I can’t shake it. They were here when I arrived. They were two of the people that made this town what it is. I know others step up to fill their shoes, but their lives had meaning, and they brought meaning to mine. I miss them already. I’m starting to lose my friends, and as I do I realize how much they mean to me. These deaths, and those sure yet to come, will not be easy by any means. It’s going to be painful. I didn’t see this coming.