I hate death; we've had an unnatural relationship since I was 12 and my grandad died on my birthday. Is there ever a convenient time to realize your mortality?
I've been pretty lucky since then, having only had to attend one more funeral: his wife-my grandma. That's virtually unheard of for a person my age- no death, no disease. Praise God, I am blessed! We should all be so lucky.
I'm a very cynical person and the idea that our time is right around the corner at any time is something anyone who knows me will say is my double-edged sword. It's my driving force a lot of times, rationally or otherwise.
As I struggle as to find where I fit into HIS plan, two incidents that have greatly affected me persist: the death of my ex-boyfriend, Justin, and the murder of my aunt, Marianne. I guess I just assumed that you live- you die. That's it. There's natural order and logical progression and that's that. I had no idea that I had new things to learn about the concept of time.
With Justin, what I find most odd is that I dream about him all of the time. It's nothing odd, but nothing that I've discussed with my husband (who's attended fewer funerals than I have, subsequently superfluously blessed). It's always the same scenario: Justin and I are over in terms of our relationship (which leads me to believe that we were truly over and healed), but I have this admiration and understanding and need to save him. I always meet him hours before his death and I repeatedly beg him to see a doctor. It's so odd. It's the weirdest kind of "love." We were a lot of things in our 4 1/2 years, but eternally connected is not one of them. I thought, "that was that." So what is my subconscious trying to work out? Don't get me wrong, it's not an every night kind of deal, but it's frequent enough to wonder: Why? Who or what has issues to work out, and what are they? I truly feel like we said and did all we had to say or do- no more, no less. I don't feel personally cheated, but I do feel for his wife and children. Will they know all there was to know about him?
What I could never have prepared for, however, is the murder of my aunt Marianne, by her own son- my cousin- Scotty.
As a military brat, I rarely had the opportunity to visit with family save our yearly summer vacations. My parents were wonderful about that- they truly wanted us to know family. For some reason, my dad's sister, Marianne, is the one we (my brother and I) most connected with. We would beg our parents to stay with her for one of the two weeks were "home." There was Scotty, a brilliant guy, one year older than me; Kelly, my girl!! a year younger, but we were 'sistas'; and Adam, who was a year or two older than Jay, my little brother. We all had someone to hang with, and each other. They lived out in the country; we spent our summers picking blueberries, running barefoot, catching frogs, staying up late telling ghost stories...it was as idyllic as it got.
Naturally, we grew apart with time, though I never stopped believing this seemingly perfect family would forever prosper and remain so. Nothing, nothing, nothing, would ever surprise me more.
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