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found out this morning that a friend from college died. she was a lovely girl, full of promise, compassionate and sweet and genuinely wonderful. hit by a car on some street in hackney. gone.
got me thinking about death. been in your life much? lost anyone close to you?
my cousin died in a car crash when i was about seven. she was 21. i remember my dad getting the phone call and saying "oh my god" and then crying. never knew her that well, but i do remember the funeral. indian - jain - so it's open casket and quite up close. i was fascinated by all the colours of the decorations and such, and the fact that she was just lying there looking so peaceful
my dad died when i was 13. heart attack. was pretty devastating. my mum and the village cop sat me and my brothers down. i knew what she was gonna tell us. she accidentally said "passed out" instead of "passed away". my poor mum. my littlest brother, only 8 or 9 at the time, ran down the stairs and shook our father's corpse trying to get him to wake up.
a few years ago my grandfather. he was always there, cool guy though i never knew him really. then he was gone. i wasn't particularly sad though.
various uncles and aunts and such, though my parents' generation is a huge family so never really noticed - barely knew them.
early last year another girl i'd known in college, one of the most amazing people ever, suffered a heart attack - she was only 25 but had some sort of condition - and was in a coma for a few weeks before passing away.
so yeah, probably a bit more death than normal there. i think i'm fairly ambivalent about mortality these days, don't have any great fear of dying. i nearly did once, a bike crash. well not nearly, but could have easily. felt so stupid and planned to triumph and soar before it's all over but have slipped back into mediocrity.
My grandad died last Sunday of bowel and lung cancer, it had been on the cards for a couple of months but it's still a little hard to take, especially since I only lost my other grandad 18 months ago to alzheimers and heart-failure. The funeral is on Tuesday and I'm dreading it to be honest.
I lost my best friend when I was 12, his name was Chris, he died after swimming in a local mill-pond and getting into difficulties when he got caught in the weeds, the panic led to a massive asthma attack and he was dead before people could realise he wasn't playing about (he was a bit of a joker) and pull him out. I remember hearing on the radio that a boy had drowned in a local mill-pond and just praying that it wasn't him, even though I knew deep down that it was - he'd wanted me to go swimming there with him but I wasn't allowed because it was considered dangerous..
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Okay - at school one guy, a friend of my sisters, died when he fell onto a spike on an iron gate, and another, who fell in with the "wrong crowd" died when he had some sort of embalism or something while sniffing solvents, fell over and cracked his head open.
My great nan died when I was about 7, and she was about 97 - I was a little too young to take it in, but remember the extended family, in that wonderfully oppressed and irish way, making a lot of noise with their laughing, crying, laughing, crying, drinking, fighting, crying, laughing routine. I remember going to the casket when she was lain, and a line of family members moving forward to kiss her and say goodbye, and me not wanting to do it, and an aunt saying that if I didn't say goodbye her spirit would haunt me (thanks aunt - you wonderful heroin addict you).
My dad's mum and dad died very close together. She first, of a huge stroke. My dad's family have always had big rows and swung wildly from getting on to not getting on - but my dad took it badly. Then his dad, who was mentally unstable, had been a huge drinker and had beaten my dad when he was a kid, had died from just about every internal organ failing that you can name - the stubbon bastard just wanted to outlive his estranged wife. I didn't go to the funerals - for years my parents thought I took death badly, but it was because I wasn't sure how I'd take it and was certain that I'd start laughing or something.
Then my mum's mum died - she was a failry healthy old girl, never smoked, drank rarely, ate well, and died of stomach cancer. I had a wonderful chat on the phone with her before she died. I was probably closer to her as she would look after my sister and I during school holidays, miles away from home, my sister and I would go to work with her (she cleaned council buildings - including the library so I would just sit around reading all day). It was amazing how quickly she lost weight and seemed to almost vanish rather than die.
Just before that one of my cousins bunked off school and took his dads motorbike for a ride, hit a bend on a road too fast and flew off hitting a tree and dieing instantly - I was at university at the time and my mum phoned in tears to tell me - his name was the same as one of my nephews who I am really close with, so it was a weird feeling of being hit by terrible painful news and then having it upgraded to bad sad news. I felt awful, because even though I was close to this cousin, I was relieved that my nephew hadn't died.
Another cousin died of a heroin overdose - drug use is fairly prevalent on my dad's bigger family side - she was about my age, and had several children, but I hadn't been that close to her for years, and was just a little disappointed really.
Various friends parents or girlfriends family have also died.
I have never made up my mind about death, about what it means to me or how I should take it - I never really cry, in fact I cried more when my gerbil died, but just like to be alone and think for a bit and that's it.
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