When Does Tragedy Arrive?

Have you ever wondered what life will be like after you're dead and gone?
Will the flowers be pretty, will it be the casket you want, where will you be laid to your permanent rest?
Who will come to your funeral, who will cry the hardest?
Have you ever thought that you wanted to be in control of your destiny, deciding yourself on the way you'd go out?
The diseases and ailments that people die from today are vast and varied.
There is no way to "die beautifully."
Ever thought, "If I run the car off the road, right here, into those trees, it will all be over and I won't have to worry about ______.  The roads are slick, it will look like an accident and no one will be mad at me for killing myself."
Suicide is pretty vain every way you look at it..
It's selfish and rebellious.
I've thought about suicide not as a means to an end, but thought about whose hearts I'd break if I did.
(This is not a suicide letter by any means, I'm not contimplating suicide at all.
A friend's daughter's friend's mother killed herself this weekend over money troubles.)
I have too much to live for and most of my reasons are pretty selfish.
Well, they all are.
Rachel's Reasons for Not Committing Suicide: I don't want an autopsy, I hate flowers, I'll miss seeing so-and-so's ugly baby grow up, I'll miss seeing so-and-so get married, I'll miss seeing so-and-so get divorced, I'll miss my own wedding, I'll miss my own babies, I'll miss Boots.
On and on and on.
I'm not going to do it.
I am going to chase this thought rabbit that runs through my brain though.
(Has anyone else notice that my thoughts do kind of just run around from one thing to another?)
I think that most of us live our lives in extended anticipatory grief stages, bouncing back and forth between them and sometimes even repeating.
When we're teenagers, we think we're never going to die and we live our lives with reckless abandon.
That's Denial.
When we're a little older than teenagers, we start to realize that everyone and everything must die.
Live can't continue forever.
That's Acceptance.
When we hear about someone less than forty years old having a stroke, almost wrecking the car, and killing her family, but being saved by her youngest ten year old son, and being diagnosed with a brain tumor, we wonder why things like this happen in the prime of someone's life.
That's Anger.
And possibily some Depression.
We realize that we don't usually get a say in what happens to us.
We realize that whatever it is is going to happen to us and most times it's out of our hands.
Acceptance again?
Depression maybe?
The bottom line is, we all have to die.
It will be ugly, either tragic or debilitating.
We will die horrifically or either peacefully after long battles with various illnesses.
We never know when it's coming for us, unless we plan it.
I don't recommend planning your death.
Too many things can go wrong when humans start playing God.
Just let it happen.
Hope for the best and live life the way you want to remember it.

Two Years Ago Today......

I witnessed embalming for the very first time two years ago today.
I was 19 and scared to death that I would pass out like I did witnessing so many other various medical procedures.
But I didn't pass out, I loved it.
I remember her name too, but I can't tell you because that is private information.
She was my first.
I held her hand.
I got lost on my way to the funeral home.
It was sleeting.
I was nervous because this job was what I wanted more than anything in the world.
I wanted a job that I had absolutely no skills for.
I wore grey dress pants and that stupid red cardigan with the zig-zag diamond things down the front and the stupid white collar and cuffs that promptly turned pink the moment I washed it so I never wore it again.
I have learned so much in the past two years.
Wow.

So this week was my last first week back at school and I missed every day of it.
I only go to school two days a week; its part of the program I'm in. 
I take 14 hours of classes in 2 days and then I work 40 hours a week at my job.
I missed Wednesday because it was Boots' grandmother's funeral.
It was a very nice funeral.
Its so different attending a funeral rather than working one.
I don't know what to do really, so I spent most of my time watching Boots like he was going to run away and leave me!
I wasn't scared being around these people that I don't really but kinda know, I just wanted to be with Boots.
Hold his hand everywhere we walked.
And I just like looking at him.
Observing.
I like watching the way he walks and watching him laugh at jokes while he's talking to other people.
I'm missing school today, Thursday, because of the snow.
My school's in Mississippi and they are scheduled to receive 4 to 6 inches of snow today.
So no school.
And now its starting to snow here in Alabama.
Ugh.
I hate snow.
Why does it ever have to snow in the South?
If we wanted snow that bad, couldn't we go up North to experience it?
It only creates headaches down here.

New Quarters

I'm not talking about money.
Guess where I'm sleeping tonight.
At the fun house funeral home.
Guess why.
Read this next part really fast just for kicks.
Trust me, it sounds better inside your head that way.
And imagine the voice that's saying it is really southern.
K?
Here goes.
Cuz I got a horrible gas leak and I almost woke up at work instead of coming to work because last night before I went to bed I almost left the gas logs on and went to sleep but I got up to turn them off because I was afraid that the extra heat would catch my couch (lovely couch!) on fire and then burn our  house stupid apartment where 8 dogs live upstairs nice apartment down but instead I might have prevented us from dying in our sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning!
Whew!
Out of breath now.
And that's quite a string of prepositional phrases.
OK, fast story slower.
The roommate came home from work, smelled gas, called landlady, no answer.
Proceded to hunt down call maintenance man.
Maintenance man arrives, says, "Ya gotta gas leak!", procedes to shut off gas, pops back in his truck with his lady friend and speeds away.
OK.
Now what?
Roommate decides maybe still not safe to breathe there, packs up my dog and since I gotta be on call for the "Hotel California" tonight, I'm sleeping at work.
In the dorm.
On one of the old twin beds.
Excellent.
I don't mind sleeping here, but I'd rather be at home sleeping in my bed because I KNOW whose cooties are in that mattress--mine!
And I gotta get ready for school here in the morning.
And Boots' grandma died last night.
Which really sucks.
I never even knew the lady.
He cried.
Which was really sad but I can't wait to see him cry Wednesday at her funeral.
I want to wrap my arms around him and squeeze him and love on him.
Is that wrong that I'm eagerly anticipating seeing the boyfriend cry?
It just occurred to me that I might be a tad bit excited.
Geez Louise, what kind of sicko am I?
Oh!
Aaaaaaaaannnnnndddddd......I'm up to 9 followers!
Yay me!

Seventeen Forever

Today has been a dreary day.
Dark, cold, and rainy.
The weather was like this two years ago.
December 8, 2007.
I worked that day, 8 to 2.
I really hated that shift because they wouldn't let us take a lunch break.
Went home to my dorm after work. 
Lazed around, played on the internet and took pictures of myself for my facebook when I should have been studying for my first semester of college finals.
A little after six-ish, my little sister called me.
Bawling.

"Amber had a wreck. 

She didn't make it."

She had been at a friend's house working on a term paper for her senior year of high school.
She told the friend she was heading home, but really wasn't.
Instead of going home she went the opposite direction to see a boy her parents didn't want her to see.
It was raining, the roads were slick.
There were no skid marks where her car left the road on that hill.
Just a black scar on the edge of the woods, where her car had burned the ground.
The trees were broke off even with the ground, bits of car parts scattered.
A few days before she'd passed out a work, they thought maybe she's passed out and wrecked that night.
She was known to be a reckless driver.
I know the feeling of going somewhere you know you shouldn't be, trying too drive fast to make up for the time that would be lost.
I don't know but I think it was probably a combination of a wet road and speeding that helped cause the wreck.
Some say the car was defective, that it had some mechanical problems.
Her funeral was three days later.
No viewing, no visitation.
No one saw her, her body was too badly burned.
She had to be identified by her teeth.
Her rings were returned to her mother, the stones had changed colors from the heat.
They played Carrie Underwood's song, "So Small."
Everyone cried.
The casket was a pale, baby pink with her picture setting on top of it.
I have never cried so much at a funeral, not even my grandma's funeral and I loved her more than anybody in the world.
I had never known tragedy like this in our family.
We used to play together when we were little but in recent years we'd been kind of distant. 
We ran in different circles, we had different friends.
She stayed in trouble and I was trying to get out.
I heard Pearl Jam's "Last Kiss" song right after six tonight and it made me think of the present weather and the weather that night.
I don't cry when I think about her or when I hear things that make me remember something about her.
Some people have had a very hard time dealing with her death but I'm ok with it.
I do wonder what she'd be doing now if she were still alive though.

Just Chillin'

"Death is a process and not a moment in time."

My Last Visitation......

Saturday night I was southbound to G-boro when my old man calls and says, and I quote, "Hey! You comin' to visitation tonight?"
And I'm like, "Well, who died?!"
Turns out, it was a lady that I've known all my life.
She was my Sunday School teacher at church for a few years and she's always helped with VBS.
She lost her battle to cancer last week.
I'm not sure how hold she was but I'm sure she had a good life.
She was always a happy woman and very smiley.
I flew back to T-town to get ready (I took a 35 second shower) and then flew on to C-ville.
I got there about 20 minutes before the visitation was scheduled to end, but these things always run late, I know, it's OK.
Visited with a few of my relatives that were still there.
Went in the parlor.
Talked with a few people I knew, including her kids and husband.
Never got closer than 10 feet of her casket.
I couldn't make myself go over and look at her.
I see dead people every single day.
My life revolves around dead people but I could not walk over to that casket and look at her.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to inspect their work but something was up.
I just couldn't do it.
I'm still trying to figure it out.
I'm a mystery.

Bacon

It wasn't what I thought it'd be but at the same time it was everything I expected.
I guess I can thank TV for that.
I've been desensitized.
It was so much for somebody but it was nothing for me.
TV may have prepared me for the sight but other people and their warnings didn't prepare me for the smell.
They said it'd be the worst ever.
I disagree.
It was warm and woodsy, Southern and comforting, greasy and unhealthy.

Reverence for the Dead

"Show me the manner in which a nation or community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals."

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898)
Embalming: History, Theory, and Practice (4th Edition)

7-30-07

Last year on the first anniversary of my grandmother's death I went to her grave.
This year I went to visit Boots.
Didn't go to her grave.
Didn't talk about her to anybody.
Never mentioned her the whole day.
But I thought about her the whole day.
Shortly before my grandpa got married I decided that there was no use in me being sad anymore.
Being sad wasn't going to bring her back.
Nothing will.
I don't cry about her anymore.
I don't go visit her grave anymore.
She's not there.
She's in my head.
In my head, she'll never die.
Even though she did die, I will remember her until I can't remember her anymore, because she's in my head.
I loved her.
I still love her but its not the same kind of love.
I think about her all the time.

Death Is The Overtone Of The Day

It always happens.
It happened in the fifth grade with my friend RJ.
RJ was an outsider as far as fifth grade circles went.
In the fifth grade if you were any way different or "less perfect" than all the other kids thought they were you were singled out and considered to be weird and ugly.
I'm guilty of making fun of her and picking on her too.
But then her mother died.
Something about the cruelest kid changes when they hear about someone dying and for a few minutes they are compassionate.
Lots of kids, including me, felt sorry for RJ and the loss of her mother.
We were glad it wasn't us and a particular few reached out to her and brought her into our little circle.
We were close friends with RJ until graduation.
After that, I kind of went my own way but that is neither here nor there and has nothing to do with the title of this post.
RJ's story was just to provide a little bit of background on the fact that I've been here before.

The Ragin' Cajun's son died.
He was riding his motorcycle and was hit by Mexican with no license.
Braindead, The Ragin' Cajun had to decided to take him off life support.
I know this was a very difficult decision for her and I'm sure that I couldn't have made it.
I would have to wait several weeks in order to make sure that a decision this permanent was the right choice.
I would have to wait and make sure that the person would never be able to live any kind of life beyond a vegetative state again.
The story behind The Ragin' Cajun is this: she drives us all up the flippin' wall!
We can't stand her.
She's blunt with her clients and drives them away from her because of her persistent saleslady attitude.
She's good at selling things, but not so good at relating to people in their time of need.
We all have had a run in with her and recently she's gotten worse.
But now that The Ragin' Cajun is hurting, we're circling the wagons to help her.
She's suffering and we're reaching out.
Trying to bring in someone who we previously pushed away.
Why are people like this?
Are all people like this or is it just me?
Do animals do the same thing when another animal experiences loss and hurt like this?
I know its tough and I feel terrible for her.
What else can I do other than be nice to her, even though she's not on my favorite people in the world list?
I feel terrible for her.
She has to come in today and make funeral arrangements for her son.
It will be hard seeing her and I know she'll fall to pieces when she walks in that front door.
I would.
I'd hate to be in her shoes.
******
I wonder how Boots' night was last night.
It was the Take Back Our Highways weekend and I'm sure he arrested lots of people.
Maybe he's got a good story.
Or two.
Maybe nothing too dangerous.
******
I am definitely feeling the pain of all that running.
My muscles are aching.
My thigh muscles.
My calf muscles.
My shin muscles.
My rib muscles.
(forgot the proper names of those, thanks two semesters of Anatomy! You were lots of help!)
My stomach muscles.
But I'm going running in the morning.
If I keep on I might get skinny.
******
I went down to the farm last night.
The air was so sweet.
And quiet.
Well......
Sort of.
It was quiet until the cows got wind of the pellets we were offering and then they went NUTS!
Mooing all over the place.
Jumping around everywhere, jostling each other to get to them first.
It was exciting and scary at the same time!
I mean, cows are pretty docile but they're huge!
The little ones weigh 800 pounds and most of these were probably close to twice that size!
Yikes!
But I love cows.
I can't wait to have my own one day.
I can't wait to have my own farm where I can get away from everything.
Away from all these people.
Away from the traffic noise.
A place where I can work on something that matters.
Like pulling weeds out of my garden.
I love pulling weeds.
Its probably unhealthy how much I love pulling weeds.
Its destruction but constructive at the same time.
Constructive destruction.
We fed the tilapia.
Man, I can't wait to eat them!
We fed ourselves.
Grilled vegetables (squash, onions, zucchinis, tomatoes) and shrimp.
Man, it was good.
******
I really need to go back there and work on that dresser but I'm just not feeling it yet this morning.
I'm almost finished sanding it and then after that the next step is the wood filler.
******
My mom is coming to stay with me tonight.
Oh.
Dear.

A Photo Tells a Story

This one picture sums up the pauper cemetery in New Orleans.
The cemetery is right next to Delgado, the college where the funeral service program is.
The whole thing is full of markers and headstones like this one.
People just use whatever they can.
And they have to because they're so poor.
Kinda sad.
I love cemeteries.
They have so many stories.
I love a good story.

Death

Even though I work in a funeral home, death still affects me.
A classmate of mine died yesterday.
We weren't especially close but she was going to be working at one of the other funeral homes I work for.
We'd had classes together in the fall but not this semester.
I just saw her two weeks ago and now she's dead.
I am sad but I'm not too sad because I know she's in a better place now.
This helps me to remember what other people are going through and feel like when they come to the funeral home.
R.I.P. Dawn
Sigma Phi Sigma 2010