This all started in February of 2008. It was a Friday and I was on my way to Bangor, Maine for work. I was replacing a domain controller for the office we have up there and I had to do it during "off hours". It's a 4 hour drive and I was driving up in the snow. You know how there are certain days you will never forget? The days you always remember the stupidest details of the entire day for; September 11th 2001, Columbine High School Shooting. Well, this was one of those days for me.
I remember working half a day and heading to Maine. The drive was slow and the weather got worse as I drove further up. There was a commercial-free-all-blues radio station that made the drive a little more manageable.
At one point, I had pulled over to refuel on coffee and cigarettes. The snow was starting to get bad now and I was stressing a little. About 5 minutes after I got back on the highway, all traffic came to a hault and I fish-tailed down Rte 95N in Maine for about 3 minutes. Luckily, I had seen the stop in traffic way beforehand and I still managed to get control and stop before hitting anyone(again, some days you remember every detail).
Anyway, I was actually getting off the highway in Bangor, 1 minute from the office when Andrew called me. He had called twice that day, but between being busy at work and trying to concentrate on the roads, I had just decided to call him back when I got to the office. I figured he forgot I was in Maine for the night and was just seeing what was going on for the evening.
As soon as I heard his voice, I could tell something was wrong. His father had passed away(God Bless him). He had fallen down a flight of stairs and did not know he had internal bleeding when he just got up and went to lay down. Talk about a shock, talk about completely out of nowhere. My best friend was devastated and I was 4 hours, a night of work and a snowstorm away. I'm not sure I ever felt worse.
A couple of months later, it was a weekend where my personal cell phone had been dead and I hadn't plugged it in all weekend. Almost all my friends had and used my work cell phone now, so I never really worried too much about it. Well, it was Sunday and I had plugged my phone in an hour before. I decided I would go check my messages. I walk over, turn the phone on; "1 Message". I flip the phone open and it's from a real good friend of mine, Dan. The message said:
"Shane's dead. Call me"
The message was from Saturday morning. I was shocked, stunned, horrified and I couldn't believe I hadn't responded to Dan in over 24 hours.
Shane was 23 years old and was hit by a train walking to his friends house early Saturday morning. They were trying to get an early start on a camping trip. God Bless him as well.
Thanksgiving morning I woke up to find out that my great uncle had died at 75 the night before. Now my grandmother is going to be 84 in February of this year. She has two living sisters and they both had living husbands. Our whole family is really very close. Out of all of them, Conrad was the healthiest. He was never in the hospital, never sick, hell - he painted his shed the day before. Well, he had a heart attack and died.
He was my great aunt's husband and also one of my grandfather's best friends. I will miss him. God Bless him, too.
A couple of weeks later, on a Sunday morning in December I woke up to a call from my friend Eric. He was living in Chicago now for grad school and should've known better than to call me this early on a Sunday morning. I let it go to voicemail and rolled over. Whatever he had to tell me from Chicago could wait. I knew he wasn't calling to make plans for the day or anything immediate, so I wasn't too worried about it. I slept till about 2:30 in the afternoon, woke up and migrated to the couch. I turned on some football and made myself something to eat.
At about 4-430 I remembered Eric had called that morning and I decided to check my voicemail:
"Hey man it's Eric. Jesse passed away last night from a blood clot in his lung. I'm trying to get a flight home tonight. Give me a call when you get this."
I couldn't believe it. Jesse? He's 27 and in the Army Reserves. He survived 3 years in Iraq. He died of a blood clot last night??
And it was the truth. God Bless him.
Deaths have a funny effect on the living and we deal with it in a funny sort of way. It is always an unavoidable reminder of our own mortality. It makes us face a question we hate to ask. "What happens when I die?" Everyone asks themselves that question at some point during a wake or funeral. It's how we as humans understand anything. We relate everything to ourselves. And that's a scary thing when it comes to death.
Death also makes us realize what we take for granted and more importantly, who we take for granted. It makes you think twice about making the extra effort with everyone because it could, indeed, be the last chance you get.
The thing about it, though, is that death is TOO uncomfortable for us to think about. Our mind is good at protecting itself and to constantly think about our mortality would not be good for us. Usually a couple of weeks after the funeral we are back to taking as much for granted as we did before.
That isn't a completely bad thing. It's pretty obvious living our whole lives thinking about and worrying about death is not a good thing. But where is that line? Because I am pretty sure we shouldn't go back completely to everything we take for granted. I guess having all of these deaths within a year hasn't allowed me to go completely back.
We spend a large portion of our lives trying to feel important, accomplished, respected. Life, time, the universe or however you want to term it, doesn't give a shit. After Jesse died, Andrew said something to me that I thought summed it up pretty well. He said:
"the scary thing is that your grandmother had a blood clot in her lung last year and survived. She's 83, Jesse was 27 and in good shape. There are some things that you just can't control."
And that's it right there. We are so small and so unimportant. I've always loved to sit on the beach at night, when no one's there and just wash the waves roll in. To stare out at how vast it is. How it moves so strong, relaxed and unwavering. The tides come in and out every day. That will never stop. They don't care who or what is on the beach. The water wildlife adapts to it. It never adapts to them.
Some people say they like to lay out under the stars and gaze upon a completely open sky in the country side. It puts them in perspective. That is what the ocean does for me. It goes out for as far as you can see and the furthest you can see is a fraction of its size. Not only is it vast, but its movements remind me of life and death.
Life keeps going and it keeps going according to itself. Death comes when it will come. Death takes no notice of us or if we are ready to go.
Death does not care if you are in your 50's and leaving a wife and two kids behind.
Death doesn't give a shit if you're 23 and getting an early start on your camping trip.
Death could give a fuck less if your wife is old and needs your help, if your kids aren't even close to ready to accept this.
Death is indifferent to the fact that you are 27 years old. Doesn't care that you spent 3 years in Iraq and are trying to get on the police department.
And Death doesn't care if you are 90 years old and ready to go. Doesn't care if you made a decision to stop eating and drinking. Death will wait a week and a half and pick you up on his/her schedule.
It's a hard thing to think about and an even harder thing to come to terms with. I've been forced to this year. I think all we can do is live. Swim and play and laugh in the ocean of life. Ride the tides in and brave the tides out because no matter how much you complain or fight them, they aren't changing, slowing down or speeding up. We need to stop taking so much for granted. We need to appreciate what and who we have in our lives and not just because they might die, but because they are alive and so are we and we are sharing this together.
Because when it comes down to it, maybe we're all just stealing minutes.
"laying in bed tonight i was thinking
and listening to all the dogs
and the sirens and the shots
and how a careful man tries
to dodge the bullets
while a happy man takes a walk
and maybe it is time to live "
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