Have you had people in your life that are dead now?
Last night I was sorting through old contacts.... boxes of business cards, old address books, envelopes with scraps of paper on them. That kind of stuff.
I came to an old card file filled with hand written names addresses and phone numbers. As I leafed through it I started coming across names of people that have died in my life. Suicides, motorcycle accidents, the military, rock climbing accidents, overdoses, AIDS, heart attacks, etc.... Lots of people. More than I had realized.
I was tossing aside the cards with the dead ones, and all of the sudden I started to get a tight feeling in my chest. I started remembering each of them. Their faces, their voices, little events that we had shared. My throat was closing up and I felt a deep sense of meloncholy and loss.
I stopped what I was doing.... all I could do was stop and think for a while... I put the stuff away, and eventually had a drink and snuggled up to my wife.
Of course I grieved over each of them at the time that they passed, but I guess there are times, now and then, when you just stop and take stock of all the people that have touched you in your life and are no longer living.
Anyone else ever have this feeling?
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