death

A man from my church died unexpectedly yesterday. He was in his early 50s. His daughter used to date the son of a good family friend. The man and his wife have been at my house for new years eve, and were members of my parents small group. It is a shock to our church family who, on the day of his death, buried another early 50s member who had been ill for some time. I guess he woke up in the middle of the night with pain in his left shoulder. He wrote his wife a note, and left for the drive to the hospital. He never made it. As he left 75st to turn onto the Whitemud, he was in a single car accident, believed by most to have been caused by a heart attack.
I wont claim that I knew him very well. Although almost exactly one year ago I was at his home as my then boyfriends sister had her wedding photos taken. But it is a shock on other levels. It scares the bejeebers out of me because his age is similar to that of my dads. Because it is a surprise and shows that death can present itself at any time. Because there is no a young family, mourning the sudden loss of their father, and because of its unexpected appearence, this death is hard to grasp.
I don't fear death. Not to be all religious and stuff, but I know there are better things waiting for me after I die, but by no means do I embrace it. Or wait for it. Or welcome it. At least, not in this case. (I say in this case because patients of long time illnesses sometimes do welcome the finality fo death and the end of pain that a family suffers as they watch a loved one hurt).
So. I suppose I write this in mourning of the death of a man. In mourning of; A close to home hit. A man not expecting death. A family suffering an unexpected and great loss. And the brush with reality that it brings. No one in ever safe from the clutches of what is and what was. No one can live with certainty that death is a distant future.
It is here. It is now. It is the future. It is present in all things.
Death. A cold, but unexscapeable outcome.


No joke today. Hard to write one after that subject. Sorry if it was random.