I Hate Death

We lost another family friend last night. He was in his early 50’s and had a new grandbaby only a couple weeks old. He was holding the baby and then told his daughter to take the baby. He felt tired and wanted to take a nap. Ten minutes later, his daughter went to check on him and he wasn’t breathing. He had a massive heart attack.
My husband just lost one of his brothers back in June to a massive heart attack. He, too, was only in his early 50’s.
The hardest part about living in a small town all your life is dealing with the loss of others. Deaths seem to happen in 3’s. It’s kind of a morbid thought, but when there is a death, we all think to ourselves, “There’s going to be at least 2 more.”
We are all affected by each others losses. The town seems to pull together when things like this happen which kind of makes it easier to deal with. Sometimes, though, I wish I didn’t have to deal. Not that I don’t care, I just get tired of hurting. Is that selfish of me? Sometimes I think so. Then I start to feel guilty.
Our friend was a great man. He was always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needed it. He always had a smile on his face and never spoke a cross word to anyone. He was a pall bearer at my brother-in-law’s funeral.
I’m on my way now to go spend time with his family. That’s what we do here. We gather at the home of the recently deceased to support the surviving family in any way we can. I’ll bring a salad. We never go empty handed.
I just wish we could learn to get together like this during happy times, too.