Here Be Dragons

2008-08-27

I�m, upset, I guess, although that�s not the right word either. Try a combination of upset and bamboozled. All I can think of is �Why? Why?� and �Way too young�.

About a month ago a young woman, 40ish, is sick but work calls and begs her to please come in. She drags herself into work as a loyal employee intending to help a few hours during the busy time and then slip out. Well, all day was the busy time and she put in a full 8 hours. She checked out, made her goodbyes, walked to her truck and never arrived home. Something in the vicinity of 6 hours later her husband starts to worry and think, �Where is she?�. You know how it is. A long time partner stops at the mall or at a friend�s house on the way home and loses track of time.

He couldn�t find her anywhere. It got late enough that he really started to get worried and he called everywhere and then got in his car and started looking. He found her in her truck, in the parking lot of her work, dead. The sun had beat down on the truck and her body had cooked a bit. Cause of death? Unknown. He suspects that she may have been bone tired and fell asleep in the truck and died of the heat, but he doesn�t know for sure. The autopsy shows no real reason why she shouldn�t still be here by his side.

The night before she died Fred and I sat with her and her husband at the Moose Club, where they were members, and she was bright and fun and full of life. You just never really know when your time is up.

Then last night I was talking with Joe B. We call him Young Joe because he�s only 25 and Old Joe is almost 70. He was pleased as punch that the day before he and two friends had cleaned up at a pig roast and that meant free drinks and afterwards they had wrestled in the bouncy house that was rented for the little kids. He thinks he cracked a rib but he was sure that his friend, Sean, who outweighed him by thirty pounds, �Wouldn�t mess with him anymore�

I was doubled up in laughter hearing about these antics. He was going to scout out and build me a �special� demolition derby car next year. He had just bought and moved into his first home three streets away from me. Mondays he played guitar and sang for the Moose for free in an attempt to bring in more business for his friend, the bartender. He was a navy recruiter, he had friends, he was young with his whole life ahead of him and the world working in his favor, until last night.

After we left Joe took a ride on his 2003 Harley Davidson and somehow lost control and smashed into a pole. They think he was wearing a helmet because one was found near him. Just that thought freaks me out. Why would a reporter put that in the paper? Does it mean his head was torn off?

Both people were so warm, nice, personable and too young to die. WTF? Alive one moment, dead the next and for useless reasons and here I am a cancer survivor, two children, three grandchildren and about to be married for the third time and living with a chronic blood borne liver disease. I should have died at 12 of appendicitis but medical knowledge kept me alive and later at age 28 child birth should have taken me out except for modern medicine. Then again at 50 I could have died of breast cancer except for modern medicine. I�ve lived a full life and have faced death a few times. If anyone could deal with this it was me but I am still standing and their lives are snatched away without reason or purpose.

I guess I hate the suddenness, the whole "how healthy" thing they had going. A person should at least be gravely sick first, not shot down in their prime by a mistep. I just hate it. I talked to both of them only hours before they were taken. This sucks .. sorry guys .. I�m just out of words.

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