Death Cluster

      Well, I don’t really know how to start this one. I know that happens sometimes, but this isn’t from lack of things to say, it’s from the amount of things to say. Oh well, I guess I’ll start from where I left off last week. The company party was okay. The hotel room was awesome! We had a view of the ocean and got there just as the sun was setting. I got a rad picture from our balcony. Yes, we had a balcony! I thought it was kind of jacked up that we had to pay $45 to park! We’re already paying hundreds of dollars for the room, and they make us pay to park!? I thought that was bullshit. There’s all kinds of free available parking surrounding the hotel, but you aren’t allowed to park there from 2am to 4am! What kind of crap is that?! The pre-party dinner was pretty good. The food was excellent. I can not wait for another reason to go there. The couple we went with were very nice. There wasn’t really an awkward moment. I could tell that my wife and her manager were getting closer, more like friends than co-workers. The managers all came by the table because the 2 ladies I was with do their books. Both ladies seemed to like the attention. I know my wife did. I think it makes her kind of feel like a big shot. Which is fine, she likes to put a face to the name on the email. We did end up staying at the restaurant longer than we expected. We even had dessert! I stuck to the idea of not caring about it. It was probably a good thing too, because when we got to the party, a little after 8, it was pretty lame. If we had gotten there earlier, it would have been very dead. Good thing we ate too, the food available was not very appetizing. We did play casino games, and I got out of dancing, so, overall, I would say it was a success.

     Now, on to current affairs. This is a doozy. I say that, not just because of what I have to say, but also because I was just talking about it. A couple of weeks ago, I was writing about mortality and how I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because so many people I know were passing, or having loved ones pass. Then, on Monday morning, I was just getting up, I was using the restroom, and I hear my wife on the phone. I couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying, so I tried to pee quieter so I could hear what was going on. It was crying. She was on the phone with her mother, my wife’s father had died. Not really how you want to start your week. He lives up north, with one of his other daughters. He was kind of a miserable soul. It seemed like he was just waiting around to die. He had no work or hobbies. Video games and candy was about all he cared about. He wasn’t nice to people, or to himself, but still, it’s her dad. She was a wreck. I saw her standing their shaking and crying. Apparently she was coming to see me. I tried to get her to sit down, but she just stood there shaking and crying. Later on, I asked her how her mom broke the news to her, and she told me her mom said: “Are you sitting down?” I found it a little funny that she was sitting down, and then when she got the news, she got up. I would imagine you’d stay sitting down, when you get news that you should be sitting down for, but I guess we never really know what we’ll do when we get news like that. I couldn’t get her to sit down. It’s not fun or easy seeing some one you love so sad. Seeing her so distraught was worse to me than the news.

     I was only around him a couple of times, so his passing didn’t really affect me too much at all. Plus, we all knew to be expecting this call anyway. Knowing this call is coming does not make it any easier to accept the news. Or maybe it did. Perhaps this was a lesser reaction. We’ll never know. Either way, it was not fun. I felt bad for her. Luckily, she was working from home. That would have been quite a scene at work. I would hear her break out into tears every once in a while. I’m really not looking forward to getting the news when it’s my turn. The next day she got another phone call, her brother-in-law’s brother died. It was his last living relative, other than his children. Fucking sad. I guess he was ill for a while, and again, they knew it was coming, but still. He just said that he was glad he had been able to spend some time with him before he passed. I suppose that’s the lesson, spend time with people. One of my wife’s gratitudes was that her father had called on her most recent birthday. He hadn’t called her in years, but he did this time, and that’s what she was happy about. She’s been doing very well at thinking about the good things. There are probably a lot of things that, now, will never be resolved, but she’s thinking of the good. God bless her. Then, on the next day, yesterday, she got another phone call. Her mother’s boyfriend’s dad had passed. 3 deaths in 3 days! It’s hard to stop thinking about death when people keep dying. Unbelievable! I told her not to answer the phone today. The boyfriend’s dad was expected also. He was already in hospice and was told, about 2 days ago by the nurse, that he only had a day or two left. She was right! Even that doesn’t make it any easier. Or maybe it does. We’ll never know.