Death

I'm reading Philippe Georget, Autumn all the Cats Return, in English. I'd read his previous one in French. I am lazy if I have a choice of languages to read in. I will take the English.

It starts with the funeral of a young boy, killed in an accident. Gilles Sebag's daughter is devastated.

It triggered the memory of the first person my own age that died: Jimmy Johnston.

I'd lost my Uncle Gordon when I was 20 months. My grandmother found him dead in bed when he was 33 from a cerebral hemorrhage. I was told that my grandfather had died when I was four. It did not mean much to me other than I could no longer play with him.

We had just graduated from high school. Jimmy had been riding in some kind of go-cart on the then unfinished Route 93 when a car, which should not have been on the road hit him. He wasn't a close friend but we sat side by side at the back of U.S. History Class with Mr. Aldrich. I remember he had a yellow and white boat neck shirt, a style the administration didn't like.

I had never really thought anyone of my age could die. In 1960 it was still pre-Vietnam when too many of my age group died.

Now six decades later, death is common: friends, relatives, writers, actors, singers, neighbors, politicians have all died.

Great leaders, John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat and and and. There is the shock of turning of the news to learn a bullet has ended the life of another person who was making a difference.

The same in my personal life. Barbara and Mardy...people who shared my heart and soul for decades are no longer available to talk, cry and laugh with.

I think of my own death more since turning 50. With two cancers hopefully vanquished, the preciousness of life is only more dear. Adoring my relatively new husband makes me want to fulfill our plans and dreams for years to come.

Today, I read that Alain Delon has had a stroke at 83. His recording studio was not far from where I lived in Switzerland. We never met.

The planet has existed for zillions of years. We as humans have such a short time a nano-nano-nano-
nano second on it.

Let's make it count.

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P.S. Georget's book is a good read.