Found out this morning that one of my old high school teacher/ coaches just passed away, at age 70. Not exactly sure what from. This sort of thing is happening more and more often as I get older. People I knew as a kid, friends, teachers, relatives, etc, are all getting older and checking out. You can sort of see the grim reaper waving at you from the far horizon. Anyway.
The thing I find so bizarre about death, considering it happens to all of us and everyone around us, is that we have such difficulty with it. Is this mostly a social phenomenon or an instinctual behaviour? Death sucks.
Conversely, I think I saw my 8th grade (that would be 1970!) gym coach out for a walk last week, and all I could think was "he's not dead?!?"
Thing is, it doesn't happen as much as it used to. A hundred years ago, most people would have lost a couple of siblings before they turned 10. Mothers often died in childbirth. Death wasn't a mystery. Now, for the most part, death is something that happens to the older, and tidied away from the rest of us. We're so used to the idea that medicine can work wonders that we're affronted it when it fails to. What really gets me down is when people my age go. It happened to three in the space of a few months a few years back, and it really shook me. Nobody likes being reminded of their own mortality.
Friend of mine hit 45 ten years ago and started noticing that friends his age were starting to have strokes. So he started worrying about having a stroke. He got liver cancer instead.
