Relative Death

    Not such good news in the backyard today. I had a death in the family over the weekend. My mother''s brother, my uncle. He passed away after a long illness. We were expecting the news at some time, but not at THIS time!...Those of you who have gone through a prolonged illness with a loved one know what I mean. Even though you expect it,...somehow when it happens it seems sudden!
   He was my mom's baby brother. I'm feeling sad for my mom and her family today. I hadn't seen my uncle  for quite a few years, so the impact of his death is not that strong on me. I'm just in that state of 'strangeness' where...he was a relative, but I didn't really have a relationship with him, but he's my mother's brother, but he lived many miles away, but...I could do this kind of mental assessing all day.
   Death is hard and strange to handle. And no matter who it is that dies, whether a relative, friend, work mate, etc., there is no easy way to process it. As an example, the news of my uncle's death was sad for me, but tough for my hubby too. Even though he never knew him, he feels for the family who he knows is now dealing with funeral arrangements, newspaper obituary wording, and picking out flowers and such...while at the same time trying to keep themselves together for everyone else.
   But, also since this weekend, my hubby is dealing with the loss of a work mate. He was killed in a freak accident, coming out of a store where he was picking up pills for his wife. He was struck by the car of a store employee in a hurry to get home. Whereas my uncle's death caused him sadness, this news caused my hubby to shed tears. He and the work mate saw each other almost every day,  shared life experience, and both were sad about another work mate who recently found out he had terminal cancer.
  Funny how death takes no account of past friendships or talks, doesn't discriminate or curry favor, doesn't care what time it is or how much time has gone. Just like life,...death 'Is What It Is'. But death is also...the enemy! That's what the Bible calls it. And if you don't have some kind of belief system in place about what happens to people when they die, death becomes that much harder to deal with when you lose someone you know!
   I have lost, in death, many people that I've known and loved. My sadness over their deaths has been tempered by a thankfulness  for a solid belief system, and a sure hope of one day seeing them all again. This doesn't make me miss my loved ones any less, but at least my grief doesn't have the added emotion of not knowing where they are. That would have REALLY been hard if, (like was the case with one alcoholic aunt that I loved very much) they had not lived a "GOOD" life.
   I know this is a subject that most people don't talk about, but I talk about everything. Why would this subject be off limits?! Respectfully, I acknowledge that everyone has their own views on the subject of death. I leave you to yours, without debate. If you have questions about mine, I will gladly share. But, for now, I hope that at least the subject causes you to ask yourself a few questions about what your thoughts would be if it was your uncle, aunt, or work mate that died.
  (I used to work in a facility taking care of patients. One day we lost a patient who had no relatives or children. I wrote this poem at that time.)

Obituary Of The Alone

There's not much to be said
about the lonely and the dead,
except that his life's blood was shed,
and all his memories put to bed.
There was no spouse that was wed.
There were no children to be fed,
and no concerns to tax his head;
No one to think the life he led
was worth the writing to be read.
He was alone-and now he's dead.