In the last three days, I have attended two funerals and have clipped out the obituaries of two other people that I know that have died. I’m not sure why this week was the week that God would have his Spring Cleaning of Earth but he did. Some were of the age that it was only a matter of time since very few of us live til ninety. Others were battling cancer. One guy just had a heart attack in his hotel room out of the blue. No one even knew he had a heart condition. He was found slumped over in a chair with half with half a cigarette sitting in the ash tray. Apparently, he had been smoking it when he slumped over.
While it’s plainly obvious that everybody dies, it’s never obvious the when, where, and whys of a particular person’s death. Is it random or meant to send a message to the survivors? I have no idea.
I’m also beset with people who are slowly dying in piecemeal. I have a friend who has battled cancer for years. He’s had surgery on his jaw. He’s had chemo and radiation. It came back. He got more jaw surgery and more chemo. He’s lost and gained more weight than most people do in a life time in the span of months. His mother is 100 and is in a nursing home. She can’t even eat right anymore without choking on her own food. Her memory goes in and out of consciousness. She keeps saying that today is the day she will pass. She’s been ready for quite a while. Her husband died over twenty years ago and two of her kids are already gone. There are also other people out there whose memories have long died, breaking the hearts of family members who are stunned that the sick don’t know who they are.
Strange times, a friend of mine who lives in one of the more “nicer” neighborhoods found a guy sleeping in the bathroom near his gym. The economy has come to this.
Sometimes it’s just hard to breathe when you read about these things.
This weekend, I saw I Love You Man. I will confess at the outset. I love Paul Rudd. I would watch Paul Rudd read the phone book. Okay now that I got that out of the way. This movie is far better than the previews hint. The characters were more fully rounded and “real people” as opposed to stock characters. It seemed plausible that the main character would be engaged to his fiance and that he would end up being friends with his new “man friend.” Of course, the men are into Rush and go to a Rush concert where the main character’s fiance was the only woman there. That was funny as hell. AND TRUE! The soundtrack is pretty nice too. (I Love You, Man
