**it's a Monday

I need to talk about death today...thought about it all last night.  I got a call from Mr *.  He is the teacher that takes portraits as a side job and has taken pictures of all they boys.  I had been trying to get ahold of him off and on all summer, I had figured something bad had happened and it did.  I am not going to go into great detail, but Mr *'s brother-in-law has a mental illness and he hurt himself and didn't survive.  This guy was a fine upstanding citizen, but like some of us he had a problem.  And the problem won.  I sat on the phone yesterday for 15 minutes listening to this poor man tell me all about his loose, and to top it off his elderly father's health is failing and he is having to deal with that too.  Thank God school is out.  Mr * understands this death, but he is afraid others won't.   Mental illness has always been a mystery to me.  I can understand drunks, I can understand drug addicts...take the booze and drugs away and granted you gotta deal with a head case but at least you have a start.  Mentally ill people usually have chemical problems kept in check by medication.  The ones I have known like to go off and on their meds, and also abuse other chemicals.    There is such a stigma on the mentally ill.  Now to the subject of death.  I have had my share of death.  Beginning with my Aunt's suicide, my first high school crush, who hung himself, the murder of a girl during homecoming float building activities.  This was enough to freak a kid out.  But I dealt with all that by distancing myself from the feelings which I got good at doing.  Then I married my hubby, his mother had a heart attack after a Gallbladder surgery when hubby was only 18.  He never got over that death, but through helping each other he is a lot better about moving on.  I have lost uncles and grandparents over the years.  My hubby's father had an aneurysm and passed away and then a year later my mother got Cancer and that was really painful.  After she died I got stuck in Anger, you know all those stages of grief those therapist tell you about.  I walked around angry for almost a year.  Finally, my wonderful Mark said to me, "Rose you're supposed to be angry, your mother died, it's ok to be mad," WOW the flood gates opened and I crossed over...I moved past my angry.  Shortly after my mother passed my 33 year old sister-in-law finally got pregnant, my brother and her had been together forever, and were trying so hard to have a baby, My sil always had a problem with her health, always on meds.  One day when she was about 5 months pregnant she took 2 meds that didn't mix and she took a nap and didn't wake up.  That year was a very rough year for us.  My poor brother told me after that there were days he wanted join her and their unborn daughter...but he chose life and he is doing ok now.  After all this I have become the type of person that does not tippy toe around death, Death is  a part of the process of life, but no matter how old our love one is when they die, we get mad, we get sad and we want them back.  Saying it's God's will, they're better off, blah blah especially right after they die only makes the person experiencing the loss angry.  A couple of years ago a kid my son has know since kindergarten, got drunk with his friend took the truck down a country road at 100 miles an hour hit a poll and were killed instantly.  They showed these kids at the wake that had a line that was 2 hours long to see the parents...these kid's death was a waste, but what do say to their parents?  I don't remember what I said to his mother, except to give her a hug and said please remember to eat something.  I know it sounds dumb, but this poor woman could barely stand up.  She was so out of it that she was showing people the part of her son's neck that broke during the accident.  And I don't blame her, losing your child is probably the worse thing that could ever happen to a parent.  Anyway, I guess this process of death that I am still going through is always floating around in my head, and I think about it when I come in contact with some directly who is experiencing it.  I am not perfect at this, trust me, but I very open with the subject, seems to have helped me...lately my mother has been visiting me in my dreams.  Now I could try and figure out the meaning in these dreams, but I try not to do that...I just figure she wants to hang around and send her grandbabies off to college, and let me know she is always here for me.  Something she never got to do...makes me sad, but not angry.  For me I think we as the living need to help those poor souls we come in contact with on a daily basis...have an easier time in this life.  It's our duty as spiritual beings here on this earth....Oh yeah and Mr *? he thanked me for understanding and I told him ... no problem.