When death comes

A quick evening post.  On Sunday I went to Steve and Martha's home in Kenwood to see the Academy Awards and when I arrived a good friend of Steve's was there:  Rodney. I hadn't seen Rodney in two or three years. I met him at least 25 years ago when both Steve and Rodney were graduating from nursing school in Santa Rosa. Rodney was a character, a short guy, not attractive but a great personality. He had a large goiter-like bulge on his neck that made his voice sound odd and made his appearance even odder.  But you got over that in about five minutes and he was just a regular goofy guy in his thirties.  I had a lot of fun with the two of them, mostly involving wine and grilling meat.

The thing about the neck growth was that it was inoperable and it was probably going to shorten his life because it would, supposedly, wind around his spine or something and eventually kill him.  But it didn't, he kept on being a nurse and being goofy.

But tonight I got a call that Rodney died today of a heart attack and other complications.  The fact that I saw  him just three days ago makes the death more real and immediate.  When one of your peers dies, well, it sets you back. It stops you for a moment.  You don't know how to respond.  How can someone my age die?  How can mortality be so close?

We have to take care of each other. We must speak out loud our feelings for each other, tell those we love that we do love them.  We need to acknowledge what friends and family mean to us and we need to do it now. Death is sneaky, it doesn't give us a lot of warning and it happens all the time.  We can never be prepared. We can simply try and be aware and be kind to each other while we are here.

Love.


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