Life & Death.

I really struggle with death.
Not with my own death--with the passing of others.  My reactions tend to be stronger, more volatile than those of others.  My horror of encountering corpses borders on a full-on panic attack.  I don't know why I am this way.

I miss my grandmother.  She will have been dead 13 years this New Years Eve.  I remember the day she died: it was the first time I watched the ball drop.  I was 10 years old, and I had spent the entire day with a premonition...I knew someone would die, I just didn't know who.  I knew it like I knew my own name, and it was terrifying.  That night as I lay there in bed trying to sleep, I was afraid of what may be in the dark.  I don't know why...I just was.  And even though I was 10 when she died and I spent a lot of time with her, what I actually remember of her is fleeting moments.  But God I miss her.

I also miss Brittany, one of my hallmates in college.  She died on Valentines Day, in a wreck on the way to see her boyfriend in an unplanned trip.  They had planned to wait until the weekend.  I saw her before she left--she was working on a blanket in the hall when I went to class and when I returned, and I giggled at her diligence.  I wish I had offered to help, rather than going to take a nap.  Who knew it'd be the last time I'd see her alive?  I remember that even though we'd been busy that semester, I had gone to dinner with her and a few others from our hall in the cafeteria a couple days earlier...I remember walking & talking with her, playing with her hair, just being girls.  These memories are precious to me.  It's been 3 1/2 years now, and I still cry thinking about it.  I'll never understand why the kindest soul I've ever met was snuffed out so early.  She was going to be a missionary doctor...she was going to marry her sweet boyfriend who is a pilot...she was our "soccer mom."  Not now.  But at least she can finally hear in heaven--no more yelling when we're whispering, no more loud "huh?!", no more surgery.  I'm selfish in my grief.