Sunday Blogday: Endings

A friend of mine is dying. For the last year shes been fighting a brain tumor that came on her suddenly and without real cause or reason. She has been in a coma for most of 2010 and while she's had her ups and downs, recently she took a severe turn for the worse and has been given days maybe weeks to live. I bring this up today because due to my semi-accidental napping, I skipped my normal 5:30 Mass and went instead to the campus one at 9pm. While kind of embarrassed at myself for still letting myself nap when I have responsibilities to fulfill this turned into a blessing in disguise when they announced that there would be a prayer service for my friend after Mass.

I am not too too close to this person but I consider her a good friend. The kind that I always enjoy running into and doing a quick catch up and felt utterly at ease with. In fact, the last time I saw her she was randomly in Las Vegas the same time I was and was so excited to see me she ran up and gave me a big hug. She has as big a heart as a smile and we bonded over the numerous random things we had in common from both having mixed heritage to attending the same church. Nevertheless, I hadn't ever made the trip to visit her in the hospital, though I kept up with her condition through her friends facebook message updates. So I felt it was the least I could do to spend an extra hour of my life in prayer for my friend.

I say all this in part because the ceremony naturally made me think about death. It is very tragic to have someone so young be dying for no apparent reason. Yet the traditional songs in the service were very positive and hopeful, reflecting ideas like the Lord is my shepherd of what shall I fear and the like. As Catholics we are called to be not afraid of death and that sentiment was reflected tonight. We dwelt on the hardships of life but with the confidence that God will take care of us and we will be with him soon. It was a very positive feeling even as we talked about the tragedy.

I think due to my faith I have no fear of death. I fear pain, and suffering and leaving other people and unfinished business behind, but dying itself does not scare me. In fact, I have this sort of fascination with death. Whenever death is personified in movies or literature I find it intensely interesting. Some of my favorite works include the Sandman Series, who's sister is Death and I love story of the Deathly Hallows in the 7th Harry Potter. I also enjoy the comic personifications of death like in Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job, Terry Pratchet's Rincewind the Wizzard, and all those Family Guy episodes. I've heard it said that dying is one of the most selfish things someone can do. It rings so true to me because your troubles are over but others suffer from your departure. And by no means does that condone suicide because to me the selfishness is not wanting to deal or perhaps heal the pain in your life. I hope that noone ever feels that death is the only answer to their problems.

Regardless, the concept fascinates me. It's one of life's guarantees and the concept and mysticism and fear and dread surrounding the idea of death just really interest me. I think this concept is one of the defining things that makes us human.

So that's my weekly musing. But I haven't talked about the quirkies in my life for a while so here's a story about Naysayer P. Squirrel, who if you don't recall (as I've changed his name like 3 times) is my boss in Summercamp.

An ever-amusing story to me (and by amusing I mean the same way we find it funny when a little kid runs into a glass window even though we simultaneously feel bad that its hurt) is the story of Naysayer's arm. You may recall that his office is located next to mine. You may also recall that Naysayer is not exactly known for volume control. So, through two closed doors when we were both killing time in our offices before we met people for dinner, I hear him suddenly scream "Oh my god" and the sound of his hands slapping his desk. And then again "Oh my god!!" only this time it was muffled as he was covering his mouth in shock. And then again "Oh my god!!!!!" followed by him banging the desk again and again in shock and excitement. Naturally, I finish what I was doing, slowly pushed my keyboard aside and sauntered over to his office where I was not surprised to see the latest (at the time) episode of Glee being watched on his computer. Naysayer was so enthralled by this particular scene (I seem to recall it having something to do with a surprising forward bully and his gay victim) he barely noticed me until I sat down in the room. Then he proceeded to play the scene again because he was in so much shock and continued to pound his desk with both hands "I can't believe it!" BANG BANG BANG. "Did you see that?!? Oh my go-o-o-o-oddd!" BANG BANG. Amused I watched a bit then wandered back to my office hoping there would be sushi in the dining hall.

Flash forward a week and Naysayer says that he won't be in that morning because he has to see a doctor. His wrist had been inexplicably hurting. Inexplicably. Right. I reminded him of a certain desk banging episode and then started laughing because Glee had just cracked my boss's wrist. Oh life.

In other news, Brock hasn't burned our apartment down. Not that he plays with fire its just a figure of speech. He did decapitate one card during a game of idontrememberwhat in a drunken rage that fortunately didn't strike the poor cards down in the casino lobby. Hopefully that was just the excitement of the Casinoland experience and not a warning sign of a latent violent streak where if I don't remember to take out the trash I'll come home to an alcohol enraged man sitting in a pile of shredded Kings Queens and Jacks...

He did feel bad the next morning and bought me a new deck of cards so the drinking games-er blackjack practice- can continue next time we are in a certain city. Either way we don't keep a lot of alcohol in our apartment anymore because then we tend to have parties and our neighbors lately have been particularly intolerant of anything that could possibly affect them so we are trying to keep low until they forget we are hear again. Ultimately, we can trace back all initial problems with neighbors to a certain Lady GaGa party last April that got a tinge-bit out of hand. Moral of the story-quarters is dangerous for everyone, especially if I get handicapped to match other people.

Well I suppose I should post this since its already 12:45. I did start this on Sunday I promise. Keep my friend in you prayers and I pray you have an uplifting and hopeful week Thanks for reading :)

-JTY

Currently reading: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (author of Sandman) about a boy who is raised by ghosts. Fitting for today's thoughts...

Currently listening to: Tenshi, she's talking to me on the phone but also "Alive Again" by Matt Maher

Currently playing: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn though I think I need to play the first game before I finish this.