Life is so fragile...

When you're young you don't think much about life and death. At least, you shouldn't... Kids should be busy enjoying life. As we grow older, we become a little more aware... Some of us are luckier than others and don't have to face or even think about death until way later in life.  Not all of us are so lucky.  I've had to face the fact that people died at quite a young age.  The first dead person I remember seeing in a coffin, was a neighbor of ours, Clifford.  I was five years old or so.  Then it was my grand father, on my mother's side.  I held him as he took his last breath... I was twelve or so...  and then there were too many to enumerate... Yep, death has been quite present in my life.  Some death affected or marked me more than others, for whatever reasons from how unexpected it was to how much pain was present, the violence of it all, but no matter, death always has this effect of disturbing us.  The sudden ones are never really welcome, unlike the ones which comes almost as a relief.  When a person is suffering, death can be a consolation, not only for the person in pain but for those around them.  When it happens quickly, I find it shakes our foundation more, it's forcing us to face the fact that life is so fragile, and can flip in a moment.

The first time I realized that was on 9-11, as I watched that second plane hit that tower, I remember thinking : "Life as we know it is gone..."  I knew deep in me that things were going to change and not really for the best.  (OK on that one I never thought things were going to get so fucked up as having Trump as President but I was afraid of Bush and expected the worst...)  Then a few years back, one of my karate instructor and friend, died suddenly and it shook me up.  I, once again, was faced with the fact that I, too, could die like this.  We often hear or read about living in the moment, enjoying the moment, to put our fucking phones down and to pay attention to the people around us, etc.  Many of us don't do it.  We're too busy, too important, or worst we think we'll have time later!  That's our biggest mistake I think.

This is not the first time I'm learning of a friend's passing through Bacefook.  This afternoon, it was a post from the daughter of a friend that caught me off guard.  It actually blew my mind away when I first read her post, and when I followed her link to the obituary it did me in.  Our friend, her father, had passed away the night before... He was 56... One year older than Hubby...  As I'm writing this parts of me still can't wrap my head around the fact that just before Christmas his wife and I were texting that famous ''Let's get together soon''.  Of course life got the better of us and we didn't... and now I'll be seeing him, in a coffin, on Sunday.  How fucked up is that?

Life is beautiful, but it is also short and goes by so very fast.  Life is fragile and we don't have time, so enjoy it. Now.  Life has one certainty: death.  And death has no prejudice, preference or anything of the sort.  That is the one justice in this world.  No matter your color, faith, sex, poor or rich, death does not discriminate, we're all the same.

I've lost a friend today.  He was a good man, and I liked him, and this even if we didn't get together that often.  I knew he was there. 

He's not there anymore...

May you rest in peace, Michael.