Spinning my wheels
I keep his picture attached to my monitor at work. It was a picture of the two of us until I splashed my half of it with spray from opening a can of pop. So I trimmed myself out of it. I like this one better; I like that he watches me all day. The other day I really felt like he was looking at me, instead of it just being a picture. It was a peculiar feeling, but so strong.
Tuesday I was back in the office, and I looked over at the picture, the same picture I’ve been looking at for months, and as I admired the handsome, vibrant man in the photo, I was overcome with that feeling of bafflement again. It is the same feeling that has plagued me from the day I found out he’d died: How can a person just stop? He was here and then he wasn’t. No warning that anyone recognized, and even in hindsight, as I’ve sifted through a million moments to find clues, I come up with a scant handful that, even if I’d known the signs of heart disease, I might not have put together into a credible worry.
If a person is killed suddenly, in a car accident or something like that, at least you can point to a reason. The driver of the other car was drunk, or careless, or the person who died was drunk, or careless, or the roads were bad. Or there was violence involved, and the person was the victim of someone deranged. Or maybe the person was old, and while not particularly unhealthy, anything can happen once you have a certain number of years under your belt. There’s a reason, however horrific. Something to latch onto. It doesn’t make the loss any less; it doesn’t make the grief any less, but I think at least you’re not as baffled as a person who’s left behind when someone just up and dies. Then again, maybe I just think that because that is my situation, and those who lost their loved ones to accidents would disagree. Maybe I just want something, or someone to blame. All I have to blame is genes.
How does a man who seemed healthy and was so physically active in his work be so unhealthy that he got up one Saturday morning, ate his breakfast, checked his daily blog reads, and died? I just don’t understand it, and it stuns me over and over again when that specific thought comes to mind. I look at his picture and think, “Where are you? Where did you go? And why?” The questions never change. The lack of answer never changes either.
A friend said to me that he hoped he was lucky enough to go as A did, without a prolonged illness, without pain, without any fuss, to just slip away when his time came. I can see that, and appreciate his point. As far as deaths go, I suppose this was about the best you could hope for; no illness leading up to it, in your own home. And if I had to choose for my loved ones, that’d be what I want for them, and for myself. I just wish it hadn’t been so soon. Too damn soon.
It seems especially unfair, in the all-you-can-eat buffet of unfair that is losing someone you love, that you cannot even have the minimal comfort of understanding why.