Since we get the newspaper at work, I usually read it every day. My go-to section used to be the "Extra" section with the comics, advice columns, 'Let It Out' and crossword. Now my go-to section is the "Metro," which contains the local news.
Day after day, I read about some dead body being found in an alley or someone who was shot on the street. After that, I go to the obituaries and glance through them to see if there are any familiar names. I also tend to observe the ages of the deceased. Obviously, most of the departed are above age 60 or 70, but sometimes I'll see a 25 year-old or a 16 year-old or an infant. This past week, I read about a 29 year-old graduate from Lawrence North High School who died in a car accident on his way to Spring Break.
With the recent passing of Officer David Moore, a guy who had been in my high school class, it really hit me how a person could exist one day and then be gone the next. It wasn't that I was even close to him or friends with him in high school. It was the fact that he was my age and I had interacted with him at a point in my life. It was the fact that he was a police officer, an occupation that I admire and highly respect, though I would never choose that job for myself, my children, or my spouse. The thin line between life and death is probably more evident in a job such as his, but even your "innocent bystander" can be here one day and gone in an instant, as we saw in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords & company in Arizona.
Thursday morning of the past week, I found out a co-worker had passed away the night before. She had been at about the 1-year mark of being diagnosed with lung cancer, and only a couple weeks prior to her passing, she had left work to go on disability because breathing had become too difficult. Ever since she was diagnosed with cancer, her condition never appeared to improve; it only went downhill. I suppose it was to be expected; the cancer was diagnosed in the late stages and she was in her early fifties.
Still, I don't think you ever really expect it when someone you had just seen two weeks prior passes away one night and that's it, and that's all. A similar thing happened with my grandma; she was in the hospital for testing, and I visited her, along with some of my friends, the night before she passed away. We were out walking around the neighborhood and stopped in at the hospital to say hello.
That was one of the greatest losses in my life, but I recall how grateful I felt in the aftermath of her passing that I had gotten to see her and talk to her once more before she died. I know there are people who don't get that chance; they live far away from loved ones, they are estranged, or the death is a tragic, unforeseen one.
Death is nothing new to me and you, I'm sure. But it's interesting to be a witness to the different contexts in which it occurs. Some are just a sigh of exasperation because someone shot someone else in a gang-related fight. Some are really troublesome, because an adult killed a baby. Some are very painful, because it was a person you loved. Eventually, one day, it will be me. Eventually one day it will be you.
Here's my soapbox moment (which I have just decided will be present in every post): remember that the decisions you make today might come back to bite you in 20 years. Remember that life is a fragile thing. Death is not worth taking stupid risks over. Make sure you put forth the effort to show the ones you love that you care; you will not have the chance to do so when they're gone.
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