I just read a friends blog that dealt with someone's suicide in their youth, and it got me to thinking about life and death in general. I am no stranger to death, lost my favorite grandfather on December 10th 1985, I can still remember all the details of learning that news. 2 years later his wife, my favorite grandmother passed away. In high school we had a suicide, and we lost someone in a car accident. When I was 18 my father passed on, and then in 2000 my stepfather died, on Father's Day. I had been stationed in California and flew home, he died 2 hours after I got home, while I was sitting there with him. I've had friends die, family die, I have even came close to dying. The first Marine funeral I ever went too was when one of my plattoon members, Cpl Jurado, who was from L.A. and had gone home for the weekend, because we were only stationed about an hour from there, was a passenger in a car where the driver had been drinking and ran into a concrete telephone type pole on the side of the road and it had snapped in half, it crushed my fellow Marine and the driver walked away with scratches. They had an open casket but half of his face was ceramic, the mortician did the best he could, but you could still tell. I can still picture him in my mind's eye, and this was almost 10 years ago. The most recent funeral I have been to was when my sister's boyfriend's mom passed away over the summer, and I went to the funeral as a courtesy for him, I had never even met his mother. She died of natural causes, though. The last funeral I attended of someone I knew personally was when one of my friends from here where I live, and all of you Villeians are probably familiar with who I am referring to, was found in his apartment of an overdose. That was right after I moved home after gettin gout of the Marines. The most memorable funeral I have ever attended I was actually a part of, when my step-father passed away, I was asked to present the United States flag to my mother as my step-father had been a Marine in Vietnam.It took all my discipline to keep my bearing, I think most of the people in the memorial hall had wet eyes when I saluted my mother in my full dress blues and told her on behalf of the President of the United States and in honor of the country he served, I present you this flag. I was even a pallbearer for my great great uncle when I was 19.
Death is always around us, it is the dying season right now, if you look out your window you will see the leaves turning colors and soon they will be falling from their summer homes, but we don't see it like that, instead we see the beauty in it. Which is good, in death there can be great beauty, and great peace. We must not let death get us down, but instead rejoice in the life that was there and touched us.
