Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Cherish the Love (Soundtrack of my Life)
Several years ago a very dear friend of mine lost his wife. She passed away during the night as they were sleeping. They had been married for about 25 years. It was a while after the event that I got a chance to talk with him. He had overcome his grief for the most part--at least from the outside--but still I imagine that his wife's passing weighed heavily on his mind.
Losing a spouse no matter what the circumstance must be a very difficult experience. To go to bed one night and wake up during the night to discover your spouse has died would be especially traumatic to me. My wife and I don't dwell upon the topic of death, but it does come up now and then. I don't like thinking about it much, but the idea does cross my thoughts on occasion.
Our own death and the losing of loved ones is one of those great what-if contemplations that hovers over all of us. We probably should think more seriously about the subject if we haven't done so already. Making decisions such as those related to death should not be undertaken in times of grief.
Kool and the Gang's beautiful love song "Cherish" has crept into my awareness over the years and tends to be increasingly meaningful as the years pass. As I grow older and see people I know losing their partners, the sadness of the situation becomes closer to home. When my father died at age 67 in 1990, the loss to me was a strange one unlike anything I had before experienced. Somehow I didn't fully absorb the impact it must have been on my mother to lose her partner of forty years.
The realization of the loss of a partner had more impact on my thinking nearly twenty-five years after my father's passing. My sister lost her husband who was 67--the same age as my father when he died--and then about a year later my step-father died after having been a wonderful partner to my mother for about sixteen years. The fact that I was nearing the age of 67 and that death sometimes arrives unexpectedly at ones door created that deeper awareness that my days were counting down and each day has great value.
Now I cherish my wife, my family, and my life more than ever before. Each hearing of the song "Cherish" is that reminder to me to "cherish the love, cherish the life". My days should be respected and treated as an investment in my happiness as well as the memories that come with the accumulation of a life history. Our futures are mostly uncertain while our past should not be a collection of regrets and unfulfilled dreams. What we know is the present and we should make the most of each day. We should, but I know we don't always. We can try though.
The song "Cherish" with lyrics:
Robin has been doing the Soundtrack of my Life posts on her blog Your Daily Dose. I had done a few of my own "life soundtracks" on my Tossing It Out blog as well as the song series (starting at this post) I did for my 2014 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge on Wrote By Rote. Be sure to visit and follow Your Daily Dose for more Life Soundtrack info.
Do you attach specific songs to certain times and aspects of your life? How has your life been impacted by the loss of someone important in your life? Are there any suggestions that you can offer as to the ways we can cherish our loves and lives in better ways?
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Encounters with Death
 |
| Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Since today is known as Day of the Dead in some cultures and we're in the scary Halloween season, I've been running a series of sort on my blog Tossing It Out about the topic of death. It's not a topic that many of us like to contemplate, but it is a part of life for all of us. After you've finished this essay at Wrote By Rote I hope you will continue on to my post at Tossing It Out to vote on my Battle of the Bands offering for the first of this month. Yes, it's a song about death.
During my childhood I did not have many direct encounters with death. When I was very young--about 4 or 5--my aunt died. Since I never was around her the loss didn't register much for me though I was concerned about my mother's distraught state after it happened. The thing about that death that I remember the most was that my aunt and uncle lived in a nice house and had a color television set--a rarity in the mid-1950's.
Sometime around those same years I found my mother crying one afternoon and asked her what was the matter. She said our family doctor had died. He didn't seem all that close to me and my family so I didn't understand her sadness. He was just a guy that I went to see when I was sick or getting checked up and sometimes he'd give me a shot, which I did not like at all.
Years of childhood went by during which I'd get wind that someone my parents knew had died or maybe some relative whom I had no recollection of ever having met. If my parents had gone to any funerals during those years it was an event that eluded me. I'd seen graveyards and funeral homes, but never went to any of those kinds of places.
The first time I ever saw a dead body was when I was still in high school. It was in a car accident. I was riding in the back seat with my parents and we passed a car that appeared to have been in a minor fender bender at an intersection. There did not appear to be much damage to the car, but in the back seat nearest to the side that I was sitting on was a man with his head leaning against the window. He appeared to be merely resting or perhaps unconscious, but there was a great deal of blood splattered on the window. I was puzzled about the amount of blood as the man appeared to be generally uninjured. In fact, I didn't even realize he was dead until I read about it in the paper the next day. The accident must have just happened shortly before we came upon it because the other occupants of the car, including some children seated near the man, were just sitting in the car with dazed confused looks. None of them appeared to be hurt, but just uncertain about what to do. And the man was dead. I didn't even realize he was dead and maybe the people with him didn't know it yet either.
Since that first direct encounter with death I have experienced the deaths of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members. I've been to many funerals and sent off many cards and messages of condolences to survivors. As I grow older death has settled in as a frequent visitor to remind me of my own mortality. Death will eventually come for me one day, but I'm certainly in no hurry. Take your time, o death, I'm not ready to go anywhere with you. Not quite yet.
Have you had many encounters with the death of loved ones in your lifetime? When was the first time you actually saw a dead person? Do you think about your own death or is this a topic that you try to avoid?
Hope you'll stop by to vote on my Battle of the Bands post at Tossing It Out. Thanks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)