2001-12-09 - 6:53 p.m.

Stalked By the Grim Reaper

Yay! Another bummer entry!

I realize that, again, I have not been updating much. There can be a couple of reasons for this, generally, it's because I'm too busy.

However, when I'm not writing it usually has more to do with the writing than with anything else. Usually there is an entry that I want to write, and it’s a tough one. Or, I've given myself a writing assignment that I don’t really want to do. In this case, it's the former not the latter.

I don't know why this year seems to be about death, but it is. I feel like I am being stalked by the Grim Reaper.

Of course the events of September 11 have cast a pall over everything here, but it's more than just that.

In May, my father died. Shortly thereafter, his sister, my aunt, died. In August my mother's sister, my aunt Annsie died. In the space of three months that entire generation of my family was wiped out. I'm still having a hard time believing it.

My father died of Alzheimer's, while both my aunts died of cancer, and they had been fighting it for a while.

A few weeks ago an English grandmaster named Tony Miles died. He wasn't anyone that I knew, and I'd only seen him in the flesh once. However, he was one of the most important players of the 1980s, and the first English player to get the grandmaster title. A more detailed biography of him is here.

What was shocking about his passing was that he was so young, only 46 years old, and what was disturbing to me personally was what he died of: heart failure brought on as a complication of diabetes, which is what I have. This sort of thing is very common in diabetics - Lily tells me that many of the heart patients on the floor in the hospital where she works have diabetes.

Miles was a little more than four years older than me. That's a little too close for comfort. Is that how long I have?

And then there's the case of poor George Harrison. One of my earliest entries was about a chance meeting with the former Beatle.

Again, it's kind of shocking to think that the Beatles were so long ago. George, the youngest of the group, was hardly a kid anymore - he was 58.

That's the annoying thing about time, it only goes forward, not backward. And it seems to be picking up speed.

There are deaths you see coming... and then there are deaths that jump out at you.

A couple days ago, I found out that I actually knew someone who died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, a college classmate of mine named Ed. He was on the hijacked plane that crashed in southern Pennsylvania.

I saw his name in my college alumni magazine, and it rang a bell so I went into the library and got my college yearbook out. Once I saw his picture I remembered him, although I have to admit that my memories were very vague. After all, I hadn't seen him for nearly 20 years.

I remember Ed as a quiet, shy fellow. I couldn't remember any conversations I had with him, but he was sort of on the periphery of the group I hung out in, a friend-of-a-friend. He seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him very well.

Ed married a girl from our class that he met at college, and was still married to her 20 years later. The couple had two daughters.

It was kind of a shock to see someone whose path I'd crossed on the list of victims of this horrible tragedy. It certainly would have been possible for me to be in his place on that plane if my life had turned out a little differently.

But my second reaction was anger. Ed was a quiet, inoffensive guy - what had he done to deserve getting killed by a bunch of terrorist swine? Nothing, probably. In fact, the very idea of someone deserving something like that is just absurd. It was simply a instance of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a case of the cosmic roulette wheel coming up double zeroes.

I know that into every life a little rain must fall, but this seems oppressive, like I'm living in the Kingdom of Death. I feel like someone is trying to tell me something, and they are not being terribly subtle about it.

Alright, I get it! Everybody dies! You've made your point! Now cut it out already!

I know that there is a balance between being aware of the brevity of live and enjoying each moment as they come. This year has just knocked me off-balance a bit is all. I'll get it back again, just you wait.