let us die, let them live

when we were young, grown ups seemed to skirt around death, keeping it hidden on the same dusty out of reach shelf as sex & the creepy older neighbor that you were never left alone with. they never told us that each day we see to completion brings us closer to our own unavoidable & natural demise. when the dog is taken away to "live somewhere else," or the turtle mysteriously "ran away" never to be seen again, we took these stories as truths, because we didn't understand the idea of something not being anymore. we relied on consistency & permanency. when daddy went away on a business trip, we were scared that first night when he wasn't at the dinner table. "are you sure he's coming back mama?" & she was sure. so we believed her & took solace in her omnipotence. eventually he would always come back. when our ankle biting chihuahua mutt, logan, was put down after one too many nips at scott's fingers, my younger brothers were convinced he was simply in his favorite hiding place behind the couch, & never wanted to leave it.

my first close experience with death happened when my grandfather, my mom's dad, passed away suddenly when i was 12. a blood clot in his leg broke loose & traveled to his heart. he died while my grandma went home to shower & gather a change of clothes. my mom, dad, brothers & i took a flight out to chicago the following day. we met the rest of my mom's family - her mom, her 4 brothers & their spouses & children - & mourned the loss of our beloved patriarch. the funeral was full of sadness, but also songs of love & praise for having experienced such a caring, funny, creative person.

that first touch of mortality seemed to dictate all other sudden deaths i would experience. a year later, a month before my graduation from eighth grade, a friend of mine was hit by a drunk driver about a mile from my house. a group of my friends had asked me to go out with them but it was the night of my ballet recital. at home after the performance, my mom received a phone call informing her of shannon's accident. i could barely sleep. old people, like my grandpa, were supposed to die. but shannon? i kept thinking that maybe if i had been there... if only the dance recital had been a different weekend... i woke up knowing shannon was gone before the phone rang, before my mom knocked on my door & came into my bedroom with tears in her eyes. the man who had hit my 14 year old friend as she crossed the street & left her dying on the asphalt turned out to be a father of my brother's friend. my whole class spent the next month in disbelief & solidarity. we had tremendous love for even the least socially inept. we abhorred alcohol & the stupid things it made people do. we prayed & cried, & started the lifelong task of facing our imminent death. 16 years later, i can still picture shannon's bloated face in the casket. it took me that long to take another ballet class. i never danced in another recital again.

in high school, megan, who sat next to me in advanced biology, was killed when her friend, the driver of a car she was in, went on a joy ride & she was ejected from the vehicle. then 4 girls - angela who sat at my lunch table & megan number 2, the homecoming princess who knew & was loved by everyone - were killed while on vacation when a drunk lady, with a suspended license & previous dui's, ran a red light & annihilated the car they were driving. the only survivor, besides the woman, was a teenage boy from my town.

my grandma parker, my dad's mother, died suddenly sometime between christmas eve night & christmas day in 1999 during my freshman year of college. it was the second christmas after my dad left. he arrived in the morning to open up presents with us, to lessen the awkwardness of my parent's separation. our phone rang soon afterwards. it was a police officer asking for steven parker. my grandma was found dead in bed by my grandfather, whose brain was quickly deteriorating with alzheimer's. my family met my grandpa & uncle in florida. we had a small & brief remembrance for my thrifty, proud grandma, who had survived a lifelong battle with asthma & beat breast cancer at a time when it wasn't so commonplace. it was the last time i saw or talked to my grandfather. he went to arizona with my uncle, was put in a nursing home, & passed away a couple years later while i was on tour with my future husband's band. there was no service for him; it was as if he ran away & never came back.

death for me, as a grown up of nearly 30 years, has seemed to attack quickly & suddenly, with little sympathy or discrimination. especially in the last year with the unexpected & devastating passing of my father in law, elliott, & my brother, scott. with each dying i am forced to grieve again all of those who passed before. the wounds are reopened. & i can see grandpa olund in his backyard, shirtless, smoking a cigarette with one hand, & filling the kiddie pool with the garden hose in his other, so that all his grandchildren can keep cool in the humid chicaco summer air. there is shannon's slightly cocked head in her 8th grade yearbook picture- her signature red locks never to be marred by hair dye; her infectious & cheerful disposition never to be inhibited by bitterness & rejection. i hear megan teasing me about mike, who had an innocent high school crush on me, & angela discussing boys over brown bagged lunches. i can envision the other megan with her sweet smile, unencumbered by her braced teeth, befriending those who were often overlooked; her heart open & overflowing. i feel grandma parker's wrinkly skin, hear her unique cackle as she gasps for breath at one of dad's jokes, watch her tiny arched feet always squeezed into her dr. scholl sandals. i can see grandpa parker's squinty eye stare through me as he recounts his war stories that my brothers & i have heard about a hundred times before. i recall elliott's signature outfit: mesh shorts, "brotherhood" tshirt, & athletic sandals, all stained with the food he ate too quickly & diet soda that poured from his cup because of his fondness for large quantities of ice. i hear scottie's rapid drumming on the arm of the couch, smell his overpowering foot sweat mixed with cigarette smoke that always clings to his clothes, see the raised ringed scars on his arms from when he purposely burnt himself with cigarettes while in a drunken stupor.

in these memories i am hoping to keep these precious souls alive, if only for a moment, before i have to turn down the burner on the stove or change my son's soiled diaper. with each death, my departed friends & family are briefly & miraculously brought back to life. it is terribly tragic but utterly beautiful, & i am so very blessed to carry them with me & let them breathe again.