Life Ain't Fair

[Bong O. Boi]

I just posted this on my Myspace account, but no one will ever see it. What good is venting your spleen unless someone sees it? I don't know if I could be considered friends of you guys or not, but I feel accepted here, and I've had good luck opening myself up in this forum before. I'm not sure I'm trying to start a thread here. I think I'm just letting some demons that have been really niggling at me out to play for a while. So here goes:

So Saturday I go to a another funeral. Second one in 6 months. My dad, in September. While it had been coming for a long time, it was still sudden. Expected, but unexpected. But when you're looking at four score and ten on the Earth, every wakeup call is a blessing. My dad had seen them more as a curse the last few years. The TB that put him in the hospital for a year in his 30's, plus 20 some years of smoking a pipe (he gave it up in his 60's, I picked it up in my 30's...although mine is more once a week or longer to his many times a day...at least that's what I tell myself) were slowly taking his breath from him. He hated the oxygen tank when he first got it, but within a few weeks it became just another part of his body. But still, he hurt every day. More every day. For 8 years the pain grew. He didn't want to be alive. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. But on the other hand, he was the most scared man I ever met. His fear of death knew no bounds. I think he believed, as most do, but I don't think he ever achieved the white knuckled faith in an afterlife that those staring at the abyss so often do. I often envy those who carry that faith, because I know that it must make their final journey easier. Easier than the fighting and screaming and fear that my father awoke with every day for 8 years. I suppose at the very end he got what he wanted: asleep, morphine drip, no idea what was happening, the lights turning off and not even knowing it. All in all, it could have been worse. At the end of the day, our bodies reach the limits of functionality and they give up. Circle of life. Painful to those left behind, but still the most natural thing in the world.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I get a call from Dee, of Bill and Dee from Yakima. Nicest people in the world. You know, you meet assholes, backstabbers, doubletalkers, four flushers, scalawags...the general dregs of humanity as you live your life. But Bill and Dee were just super people. Never a bad word for or about anyone. Well, except for the people that broke into their house and robbed them blind a few years ago. Bill had some very bad no- good words for them. But I was fully convinced he was going to cry when he told me that they'd stolen the pipe I'd made for them. He acted almost as if he'd let me down. For me, it was no thing. I made them a new one. But for them, and especially him, there was a meaning to that pipe that transcended it being just a piece of ceramic and glaze. It was a symbol of the friendship, the connection that we shared. I guess it stood for all the Jager we drank, the pot we smoked, the trips we took, the hungover breakfasts, the crockpots full of little smokies and bbq sauce that seemed ubiquitous to every party we all ended up at, the dances, the evenings that spilled into mornings, the week of camping every year, the sitting up all nite listening to 80's metal and philosophising. That one pipe, not a production model, but one unlike any other I'd ever made, meant the world to them. Fuckin a.

A bit more than 3 years ago, they announced a miracle. They were pregnant. After years of trying. His age, plus her medical problems had made it all seem impossible. Every fertility expert turned them away. Tanner was very premature, but he was his mother's joy and the greatest thing in his father's life. And to all of us, he was our Miracle.

Sure, we all want more. But Bill/ Dee were as happy as anyone I know. They had their friends, their little pad not far from WalMart, their families, their boy, the new PT Cruiser. Could there have been more money? Yup. We all could use more cash. But they were happy with the lives they led. For the most part all was right with the world.

It was about 8am when the phone rang a couple of Saturdays ago. Dee told me Bill had gone in on Wednesday for minor surgery on his shoulder. Day surgery. If all had gone right, he would've been propped up at home on the couch, bong in hand, painkillered out of his mind watching tv by 6 wednesday evening.

All didn't go right. Bill didn't come home. And Saturday I go to Yakima to hug my friend's widow, to say things that I desperately want to make her feel better. And they won't. To see their little boy become a man long before he should have to. To help put a person I consider family to rest before his 50th birthday.

I'm an adult. I'm 44 years old. I understand how life works. There are no promises, no guarentees. But Godammit, I just CANNOT wrap my head around the unfairness of this. Nicest fucking people in the world, who so do not deserve this heartache.

I lost friends in my teens and early twenties, but somehow there was a certain surrealness to it. I can't explain. Sure, I saw Jim Malacote in his coffin after the truck hit him, but it wasn't real, somehow. And somehow it's still not. But this is real. As real as I've ever experienced.

Maybe this is one of those after 40 things that people keep telling me about. Your hair starts turning grey, you can't digest milk as well, you get your prostate examined. Your friends start dying.

I know one thing and one thing only. I fucking miss my friend.

Red 3/9/09

[Goat Gosselin]

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i hear ya pal, shitty thing is that this sort of thing happens in threes/ i had 3 grandparents die within 6 months last spring to summer. i know your pain. condolences on both your day and your friend

A very excellent and well written post. I have lost those I love and I extend my heartfelt condolences. Hang in there Rusty.