6'

What did the fish say when he swam into a concrete wall?

Damn.

What do you call gum that bees chew?

Bumble gum.


Okay, two silly jokes for you because I'm going to get all deep on you again. Kind of hard not to be deep in light of the recent circumstances. Yesterday was Michael's memorial service. I haven't read the program yet, but it's got color pictures allover it. It's on the floor next to my bed, between a few books, and every time I see it, it's surreal. Weird. Maybe I should get rid of it. Mostly because MK was such a vivid character, and was so against people making a big deal over him that it feels silly that a) he's not vivid anymore, considering "viv" is Latin for "life" and b) we're all busy making a big deal over him.

That's not what I was setting about to write tonight. Get your gear. We're diving in.

So, Michael's and Talia's deaths were two in what has seemed like a season of death. Since Christmas-time, I have had a friend whose mom died, a friend who lost her mentor to cancer, someone else related to all this sorrow who also lost his niece a week later, a friend whose aunt died, a colleague whose 18-year-old cat died, and another colleague and close friend of MK's who spread the ashes of his friend the day before Michael and Talia died.

...which makes me wonder the following...

Are death rates increasing universally? At a faster pace?
Or just in my head? My circle.
Are there seasons of death? Like December?
Does death come like El Nino? Flooding every nine years or so? I remember my brother's death in high school started a string of tragic teen deaths that lasted for several years at our school.

In the play "Angels in America," a man with AIDS in the 80s is visited by a ghost from an earlier century saying the plague was worse than the current epidemic:
"Whole villages of empty houses. You could look outdoors and see Death walking in the morning, dew dampening the ragged hem of his black robe. Plain as I see you now."

Does it come and go, ebb and flow? Or are people checking out? Jumping ship while the rest of us suckers sail into global insanity?

Is death something I should get used to? Not be surprised by? And if so, then what is there to learn by not being JADED by loss, rather understanding of it? (knock wood)

Death is a passage. But for us left behind, at least the way most of us see it, it's a sorrowful state of affairs that has us picking up pieces that were put together perfectly fine before tragedy came along. Or not picking them up as the case may be.

I think there is something to learn here.

Have you ever been watching a film or reading a book, you're gripped by the story and the relationships and you realize, someone has to die here for the story to stay honest. Who is it going to be?

Other societies view death as a more natural part of the landscape of their lives than we do. And they continue relationships with the departed in ways that our society finds freaky.

There is definitely something to learn here.