Life and death takes on a different meaning when it is someone you know. This is an obvious observation right? If so why is so hard to accept death when it is someone you know?
My brother David called me last night about 9:45 pm. First off this was a scary thing, because my brother never calls me and it was almost 11 o’clock in Houston so it could not be good. He was calling to tell me that his best friend George had been killed in a car accident last week. I was shocked, you just never expect someone you know to die. I don’t know why this is but it is. From what I understand they think he had a heart attack while driving to work on the freeway. From the newspaper reports I read this morning, his truck hit 2 other cars on the freeway, hurting the driver of one car and the occupants of the 3rd car were unharmed.
I know that this happened because it was his time to leave this life and begin another life, but when it is someone you grew up with and spent a lot of time with as a kid it is harder to accept. I spent most of the night thinking back on all my memories with George and I am happy to say there are no bad memories. We went to high school together; he was in the band with David and at one point lived with us for awhile. George and I went out on a few dates together usually band events such as dinners and banquets. He was an amazing opera singer, a father to two beautiful little girls, and a friend to more people that I am sure I knew about. The last time I saw George was about 2 years ago, when I was in Texas. I went to dinner with my brother and his family and George went with us. George picked me up at my parent’s house and my mother made a point of telling him to keep his hands to himself and behave since I was a married woman. Leave it to my mom. After dinner before he took me back to my mom’s house we stopped at a bar for drinks and just to visit and catch up on what each other had been doing in their lives. We had a nice evening and I really enjoyed myself. I did make the mistake of telling #3 and he got very upset that I would have “drinks” with someone else and I never did with him. But if I think about that is because he never asked me too. It also brought home that our relationship was changing drastically, since he would have never gotten jealous in the past. After that George and I talked via email for a few weeks and then went our own ways again. Life did what it always does and we each got caught up in our own again.
As the night turned into morning and I started getting myself mentally ready to get out of bed, I was hit with the same feeling that I have gotten as long as I can remember. The feeling of pure jealousy, I always get jealous when someone I know dies because they are getting to go to the other side, somewhere I am so interested and curious about. Now, before you start calling 911 to have me committed, I am not plotting my death. I have had these feelings since I was a little kid. It is like when you friends get to go to six flags and they come back and tell you all about it and you know you won’t get to go anytime soon and you are jealous of that experience they had and you were left out. I think part of it is that I know what I do when I am on the other side, I know what my job is there and I want to get back to doing it. I also know that until my time is finished here I can’t do that. So don’t panic I am not going anywhere at the present moment in time.
Today they held a memorial service for George in Texas, unfortunately I was not able to attend. But, I will hold my own memorial service tonight. I will light my candles and say a prayer that he finds everything he ever wanted in Summerland. I will invite him to my house any time he feels the need to cross over into this dimension, I hope he comes back to sing in my house that would be really nice, an opera singing ghost in my house. Sweet.
