Papa, Death, and Kissing

A year ago yesterday, my Papa died of a brain tumor.

It's so strange that it happened a whole year ago, and yet so much in my life has changed since then that it's quite obvious some time has passed. It just doesn't seem like he's dead sometimes...I guess it's that way with anyone who dies. I didn't know him very well, but I knew him well enough, and some days I really miss him. I can't imagine how it must be for my Memaw...Pray for her please. She had said that this means she hasn't even been able to talk to him for a whole year.

You know, he was always a strong guy. He was about 70 when he died, but he never looked elderly, you know? It didn't seem like it was his time yet.

When he died, it was my first real experience with death, and I was amazed at how natural it felt..for.maybe not for him, but for me. I had thought that to feel death in the air would be scary, and unnatural. I remember the night before he died sitting in the living room and thinking, "There's death in the air." It's a dramatic sentiment, but it's what I thought. I could feel it. It was a heavy presence, but not the horrible, scary thing I imagined. I don't know how to explain it, but it felt as if this thing, death, was a part of life. Not the end of it, but apart of it. Sort of the way you build up your first kiss in your head to be this grand thing...You've never kissed anyone, and you think it's going to be some great romantic, dramatic thing with music playing in the background and everyone clapping or something of the like...then it happens, and yes it's romantic, but it's a lot more comfortable and ordinary than you had imagined as well. It's not dramatic. It's a good thing, but it's also just a part of life. That's sort of how I would describe the feeling of death...you think it's going to be this scary, bad, horrible thing...and yes it is scary in the sense that it's new territory...it's scary in the sense that no one who is alive could describe to you what it's like to die, and it's scary in the sense that we don't know what's going to happen to us afterwards for sure...but it's not scary in the horror-movie kind of way. Yes, it's a bad thing in the sense that it's sad and we won't get to see that person anymore, but it's not a bad thing in the sense that we'll never be able to move on...not in the sense that our lives come to a screeching halt. It's a part of life. As natural as a kiss. At least for me, the observer.

One more thing I have to say though...it may have been more natural feeling for me, because I was not married to him, and I was not his child. I loved him, and I was close to him, but it may have been easier for me to observe how natural death felt to the onlooker because I was not as grieved as some. That's not to say I didn't love him...Just that I can understand if you have lost someone very close to you and to you, it did not feel natural at all.

He's in a better place now, I know that much. It was hard to be sad for him when he died because I know that he's in a better place. That sounds cliche', but it's true. He wouldn't come back to this world for anything.