Everything falls apart

So, Pants and I attended the funeral of a 33-year old father. He was found dead on his couch Thursday night by his wife. We don't really know what happened yet.

This young man was the younger brother of the best man at our wedding. A man who grew in the very house we now own, whose parents lived here when he was born. A man with a daughter the same age as Kitten.

It's different. Every death is different. One would think that I would be able to empathize because my brother died suddenly, young. But this is different. My brother was a different personality, a different life, a different death, a different family. This family we are watching, they are falling apart.

My brother and his girlfriend were solely responsible for their deaths. They drank, they drove, they chose not to wear seatbelts. They put a young, inexperienced driver behind the wheel in the dark on an unfamiliar road, driving an 80s muscle car. If you take any one of those things out of the equation, they live. If you take the same variables and run the night over, they live. Most catastrophic events are built on a string of circumstances, a perfect storm, where any one piece removed would stop or lessen the consequences.

But this man, the man we honored and mourned today, his death is a mystery. He complained of chest pains the day of his death, and his wife wonders why she didn't make him go to the hospital. It is suggested that perhaps his soak in the hot tub might have triggered an episode in an already damaged heart, and his parents think they killed him because they bought him the hot tub. Until this family knows what happened, and probably after that, they will continue to think they somehow should have been able to save his life.

And so they turn on each other, their faith, and themselves. One stops talking. One looks 20 years older. One cannot return to the church after the internment. One is found sobbing in bed, begging for his son back. They beg for some reason. Some truth in why this could happen.

And the ultimate truth is that there is no truth. People say things like, "he's in a better place," or "it was his time," or "God has plans for him." These things are designed to keep you from oozing your grief all over them because we are all so damned uncomfortable with raw grief, an emotion so painful it's difficult to watch. These words are uttered to try to make you get better in a hurry so you can stop freaking the rest of us out, already.

And above all, these words are designed to distance the teller from death. If it was his time, perhaps it isn't mine. If God had a plan, I'm sure my part in it is here, sitting comfortable with my family. The masses grasp for a reason for death so they can avoid that thing for themselves. Everyone is desperate to know why this man died so they can ensure it doesn't happen to them. And no one wants to hear there is nothing you can do to change any of it.

I didn't really know you, sir, and I'm not sure we would have enjoyed each other's company. But I am sorry for your loss because I have seen the pain on the faces of your family and your wife. I have seen the untroubled face of your daughter, who won't remember this day but will always wonder who her father was and why she has to grow up without him.

But I thank you for reminding me again that life is short, that I must hold my children enough today to last forever, and that I must again pull myself up, put on my big girl panties, and get on with it.