Death

My heart is broken.  Six weeks into 2018 and there have been so many who have passed on from this world hopefully into the next.

First it was LeGuin, whose Left Hand of Darkness shaped my early college experience.  As a middle-aged adult I remember reading how she stood up for women writers.NPR’s tribute  speaks of her need to be counted as a writer and as a mother.

And then it was Dallas Mayr, AKA Jack Ketchum, a man I had met a few times at Necon, GSHW meetings, and a friend’s birthday.  Dallas was generous and warm, an everyday man who wrote about the darkest side of human nature.  When I heard of his passing, I ran to the basement to rummage through the book shelves for Peaceable Kingdom and its personal inscription, wondering how I had not thought of him often.  Entertainment Weekly heralded his death to the masses, complete with Stephen King’s tribute.  And to think I shared a drink and a meal with Dallas.

I wanted to write this post just after Dallas’ death, but I didn’t have it in me to put any words down.

Then a friend died.  An older woman I had wished to know better, and had intended to visit, but didn’t because of life’s hectic nature.  I remember thinking how I would visit her in her nursing home room. She had liked the cookies I had brought the last time.  Maybe I would ask a friend to come.  Only I didn’t.

And then this week, the unthinkable happened again.  The Parkland School Shooting.  As an educator, I am afraid, afraid of when it will happen in our school.  It has happened so often in America and yet we play out the same response, pray, debate, and drop the subject.  As a mother, I cried and ran home to hug my son.  I pray everyday it won’t happen in his school.  The memory of him recounting the first time he had a lock down drill in kindergarten shook me.  Children should not have to experience such things.

Death is so often casually dealt with.  Some grieve.  Some ignore it.  But one thing is true to me, the Grim Reaper is walking about our purple mountains, our fruitful plains,  from sea to shining sea.

May we transform to become better human beings.

JMonell