Things I Tell Myself

Be on the lookout for one of these.

I am trying to get a grip on myself over how devastated I am by the loss of my friend who died in a car accident recently. It was shocking and sudden with no time for goodbye. And while I know that death comes to us all, still her death is so wrong since she was such a good person and loved by so many, important to so many, even more than the average person. She wasn't an average person by any means. Do you know anyone who could drive hundreds of miles, alone, with dozens of doves in cages in the back seat? I don't. (Deb was a birder and trapped hawks for scientific research; the doves were her lure birds that she cared for like they were her children.)

I cry out to God, "Why her?" And He answers back, "Why not her?" After all, last year an estimated 42,915 people died in traffic accidents in the Unites States. So really, it's pretty common. Here are some celebrities whose lives ended that way: Grace Kelly, Jerry Rubin, Wallace Stegner, Jayne Mansfield, James Dean, Princess Diana, Jackson Pollock, Albert Camus, Isadora Duncan, Duane Allman, Ernie Kovacs and Joe Biden's first wife and son.

So I tell myself that my friend Deb is in good company. And that she didn't suffer and likely did not know what hit her, literally. (It was an 18-wheeler, see photo.) I'm just being selfish because I want her and need her. I've got to grow up. Think about the parents in Uvalde, etc. etc. 

Death sucks no matter when or where or how it happens. Accept it. (I tell myself.)