No Pity Party - Life and Death, But Mostly Death, Part One

Hey Guys and Dolls!

     When I say that I have been thinking about my death lately, I mean I started thinking

about it when my son died in 1989 at 13 years old.  This story will have a lot of death in it,

but it is not that I want a pity party.  It is just that it is necessary to know the background

that has taken me to this point in my life, and the facts are what they are, regardless of

how much I wish that they weren't.

     I first really became aware of death when my paternal grandmother died.  I was nine years

old and really never knew her.  I had seen her on maybe half a dozen occasions that I recall

between my birth and the day she died.  I do remember that we probably exchanged about 4

words during that time and that I didn't see her as a particularly pleasant person.  Not

unpleasant, just that there was really no warmth coming from her.  I guess you could say

neutral, no like or dislike toward me, just well........nothing.

This was not a huge surprise in retrospect as I never heard the words "I love you" from

my mother when she was alive or my father who is still living.  So it wasn't a stretch for me

to not remember any warmth from my grandmother or grandfather either, for that matter.

(Sure is sounding like a pity party isn't it? lol  I told you, these are just the facts, they are

what they are.)

The bottom line here is that my grandmother's death meant nothing to me.  She was,

and then she wasn't.

     When I was in, I don't know, I think 7th grade, maybe.   A classmate of my sister, who

is a year older than me, drowned on a field trip to a county park.  That was weird since I

knew him and it was hard to imagine that he was just gone from the earth.  I did see him

in his coffin and it was not a picture that I have ever forgotten.  I remember thinking that

he didn't look anything like he looked when he was alive.  I remember being pissed off

because all future field trips to the county park were cancelled forever, and I never got

to go the next year like all the 8th graders before me.  Come to think of it I have never

been there to this day.  But I digress, which will probably happen a lot in this tale.  I tend

to use a lot of words to get to the point.  If you are still here, then I'll get back to the story.

     As I said at the beginning, I started thinking about my own death when my 13 year old

son, Michael, was killed trying to cross a highway in front of a car.  The absolute horror

of this event and all that went with it, I will spare you, maybe for another time. But I

doubt it. (Okay, I'm taking a moment for a pity party here.)  I'll be right back.

End of Part One