Rant: Death

[Nik Colon]

I am more afraid of living than dying, Ron.

I hear ya!

[Cowgirl918]

I wish I had read your post Nik. I value your advice, your insights and always your honesty. Life is hard but amazing. I have experienced times when I was so ill or tired or both, that sleep or death seemed close. I am not afraid.
Gus McCrae from Lonesome Dove said it so very well, "It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living". That's my mantra each and every day.

[TXLiz]

Ugh. My favorite (not) subject.

There's a quiet little cemetery right down the road from our new home.

Every time we pass it, I think that that's where I will be before long.

And I don't think it in a dramatic, tears in eyes, hopeless way. Just a matter of fact, that's where my stats and dx lead way.

My husband just retired from the Military after almost 27 years. After moving, living overseas, deployment after deployment, I was hoping to have a life. I met him while I was in the Military and after deployment.

Now, it's not like that. At all.

I do take happiness in each day and small things.

People die everyday, in accidents and illness. Babies, teenagers, little kids who didn't even get the decades I have. And our Military, First Responders, etc, who put their lives on the line for us everyday do indeed face death without pause.

One of my best friends lost her husband in Afghanistan just a few days before he was to come home. Their son was is in the same class as our middle son. He and his mom went and bought a badminton net for them to play when his dad got home. The boy even came down and made us walk out in the backyard to see the new net and told us how great it would be to play a game with his dad.( We lived on post and they lived just a few houses down,)

3 days later his dad had been killed, and that darn net stood empty for months. It was just screaming pain and death to me.

When I get down and blue, I think of people who didn't get a chance to "fight" for their life. People who ran toward the sound of gunfire to help others and knew they may not come back, but still ran to help others, anyway. Little kids who never got a chance to do all the things I got to do. People who died in an accident, and never had a chance to say goodbye, or I love you, or have a final Christmas, or any of the things I can do.

At least I get awhile to do these things. I am grateful for that.