When it comes to the death of a friend, I am no more stoic than anyone else. In the past two months, two friends have died. One was a very close family friend I had seen a week earlier, and the other one, my age, I hadn't seen in years. In fact, the last time I saw him was at his wedding. But I do recall it as one of the best weddings I've been to. And I'm not just saying that because of the circumstances.
I am so very sad for both of these losses because they were genuinely great people. But more than that, they were the best of people. And what I've noticed is that untimely death seems to happen most often to those best of people for some reason, those who don't seem to live with much fear but embrace life, those we admire the most of all. Those who really show up. We see them as leaders or patriarchs or matriarchs, people we can't imagine life without that when they do exit the world, as quickly as they were willing to show up fot it, they leave behind a huge void and the sole question Why? I wonder why that is. But I do remember a conversation I had with my mom regarding my paternal grandmother and the fact that she was probably going to outlive us all. She said "la mechancete, ca preserve." In other words, meanness preserves you (it sounds so much better and more poetic in French. My mom is writer, she has a knack for coming up with ready-made proverbs). And that struck me as very true because my ninety something year old grandmother lives in such fear of death that she will probably live until past 100. This is not meant as a condemnation of my grandmother, but just a simple observation about the irony of life and death, and if I were a more religious person, I'd think it was all by design.
Rest In Peace.
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