Tuesday, October 03, 2006

deaths

one, death



this is something, a thing i can't/won't
try to "pretty up" or "civilize" with putting it
into a poetic form. no, this is what it is, a statement, a
rant, a useless cry into the air. it's life, death is a part of life,
a big part but it's the way of these deaths that just
is making me do the only thing i can at this moment, write.

yes, the world , certainly this country's attentions are focused
on a little amish schoolhouse and the unbelievable acts of a
rabid man, but in a little while, i will be going to a local funeral home
to pay a visit to a young man who died way too soon. a young man
whose family lived around the corner from me. a young man
that my daughter used to baby sit for. a boy and his sister that smile
in photographs that my daughter still has.

this young man shouldn't have died any more than those
little school girls.
the thing of it is, this kid died from something that kills every day, day in day out
been killing since i was a teenager in the 60's and yet we just go on about our lives
day in and day out and only notice death when it is so bizarre that we see it in headlines, hear it over and over and over on the 24 hour cable news.

we don't see headlines screaming at us for answers
for the cause of this kid's death tho.
no, because his death was so fucking everyday that
we turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the answers.

this bright young man is right now in a casket waiting
for the family viewing. waiting for his mom and dad and sister
waiting on family and friends, kids that will be staring their own
mortality in the face for the first time. he's waiting for my kid,
who has a child of her own now to walk up and look at the young man
yet seeing the small boy who grinned up at her as she took his photo.
my kid, who has to come to terms with his death and what the future
will be like for her daughter, my granddaughter.

me, i'm better at this, sad but true, than she is. i'm older, i've seen so very many deaths.
not just the older folks. the family that have gone on after a full life but
because i was a teenager of the 60's, i've seen many of "these" deaths.
they don't tear at the national heartstrings. they tear at one family at a time.
one community at a time. no CNN, no FOX or MSNBC just a small obit in
the local paper, and this ...



goddamn the pusher man!

No comments: