Death Observed

Before the sperm meets the egg; are we?
After the last breath is taken; are we?

Aunt Josie died circa 1955. I would have been around ten. She'd been dying for quite awhile. She lived across the street from our house with her son, Buck and his wife Irene. I don't know why she stopped living with the Major, her husband who lived only a few blocks away, up in the shipyard. It never occurred to me to ask why, or if I did, some innocuous answer quelled any further questions on my part. As long as I knew her, she lived across the street at Buck's. Seems to me she was always sickly. Mainly a debilitating arthritis; the knobby knuckle type. Rheumatoid I think it's called today. In good weather she spent most days on the side porch with her dog Tippy, a toy Fox Terrier, entertaining friends and neighbors alike with tales of the "good-'ol-days. During the winter months she sat on the couch in the parlor listening to the radio and later watching the little 12 inch black and white Motorola TV. I also remember she and her sisters played cards a couple nights a week. Keno I think, for nickles and dimes.

When she got nearer to her end time, everyone; relatives, neighbors and friends were well aware. In those days we had the neighborhood grapevine: the party-line telephone.
A person's dying in those days was a community event. Everyone came 'round to Buck and Irene's to pay their respects, say their goodbyes and ask and give forgivenesses for past indiscretions, and so on and like that there.

After she died, the couch, that she sat on in the parlor, was relocated and the casket in which she was laid out took it's place. Folks, including us youngsters, came to view the body of Aunt Josie. I think I must have viewed it a hundred times. Just wanted to see what dead was. It was like a family reunion with all the relatives and there was food enough to feed an army. While the old folks commiserated we kids played tag and hide-an-go-seek out side. Some of us took time out to pet and comfort Tippy. Funerals in those days were a great opportunity to meet cousins you'd only heard about here-to-fore. Let me tell you, some of the older girl cousins were real knockouts!

Dying was a part of daily life, like going to work, gardening, and eating meals; everybody did it and your turn would come 'round one day too. It was accepted just like the sun rising every morning was accepted. Death wasn't hidden away in those days, and kept separate from the living.
'Course some deaths were sadder than others. 'Specially if the deceased was young. I remember Aunt Josie's grandson Timmy dying in a construction accident. his wife and 5 kids were devastated.

Cinnamon is dying. He's our Siamese cat. He's been steadily declining for weeks and I don't think he's got too many days left. He knows his days are numbered and he's OK with that and so are we. He seems comfortable, and sleeps most of the time. He's eighteen. (Jacob went online to find out how to calculate cat years to the human equivilant, and says Cinn is in his late eighties.)

When we're here, we are!
When we're not, we aren't.