Michael Jackson, I am guessing did not make much money over the last decade of his life. Now that Michael Jackson has passed on, Michael’s death is a money magnet for some. Radio stations, broadcasting networks, independent media stations, bars,  the internet (ad nauseam, now myself included), and t-shirt printers, along with assorted bobble and trinket makers have cranked up to make as much money as they can from Michael Jackson’s untimely death.

I find it is disturbing, to turn on the radio to hear, “This is hit song number xx of the late Michael Jackson’s musical career”, or something similar. Likewise to turn on the television to watch the ten o’clock news and see (and hear) the end of what for some was an emotion filled, tear producing hour. A carefully planned special on the life of a person who a few hours before was all but forgotten by most of us. Now, Michael Jackson is a golden child, potentially grossing millions in manipulated emotion driven profit.

What a great person Michael Jackson is now that he has passed on. Michael is now possibly the nearest and dearest human being we have known in our lifetime. Profit out of death. Soon if not already, there may be items changing hands for money, purported to be used by or on Michael Jackson during the last minutes in this life.

Is this what we want, greed garnished with the tinsel of remembrance and reflection; cashing in on  a man’s life who for the most part, tried to keep his private life private? It would be a noble thing for all of us not to buy into this over glossed greed machine. We should balk at others using someone’s death solely to improve their bottom line.

Soon, emotion wringing will slow down. The hype machine may re-crank the tempo with baggage and trash, squeezing a few more coins from the collective emotional purse. Later, attentions will turn to making long term profits.

I choose to remember this about Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson had his run in the sun, and the last years of his life were not what anyone would willingly choose for their end. Michael Jackson I imagine, tried to live the best life the best way he knew how to live. Michael Jackson did the best he could with the tools he was given, no one can do more.

In my opinion – considering what little I understand about Michael Jackson’s life, some people in Michael’s life could have done a better job of helping him. Helping Michael Jackson become the human being he publicly appeared to wish to become.

If my pondering holds any merit, I reckon the adult Michael Jackson really tried to be a worthwhile human being first, and an entertainer second. I find the idea of someone warping another’s attempt to live a healthy, happy, spiritually productive life, a travesty and tragedy.

Writing this, I feel I am taking a cheap shot, trying to ride ride the media blitz. It does not feel good deep down inside. It feels rather chintzy. I equate it emotionally to living in a garbage dump slum, picking through rotten, slimy, rancid filth looking for something of value.

If there is any value of my thoughts in this post, it is the idea of unabashed greed driven manipulation and exploitation, wrenching as much profit from Michael Jackson’s passing as possible before he fades to another big event. I find it distasteful being an unwilling part of it.

These are my current thoughts Michael Jackson and his passing. It is healthy and wonderful to embrace and celebrate the achievements of another at the time of their passing. Generating anything else from the passing of another, only with the bottom line in mind, is in my way of thinking, less than desirable. I believe we collectively are not so desperate for coin we willingly promote greed in death. Memorabilia has its place in death of course, but greed has none, please choose wisely.

Because I was not paying attention to my own life something snuck up on me this year. I was struck by the anger that comes from being left behind. It is kind of hard to explain, and that not really be what it is, but it feels that way to me.

My closest family members who are older than I am are either gone, or somewhere where they can not easily be called on the telephone. For the one that can be called, they may not be in a state to contribute much to any conversation any way, so it really matters little because they are in essence gone.

Another family member has the cough. Not just any cough, but THE COUGH. The kind you get when your lungs can not repair themselves from smoking any longer. The first few times I heard the cough through the phone, I asked if they had a cold. The third time, they had been to the doctor and told me a few months ago what the doctor said. Tick, tick, the clock is on for them and time is running a very mortal path.

Most of the time I accept these things as part of the cycle of life. I know my turn is coming, and all they have done is what their parents and close family did before them, and so on, back for as far as I can imagine.

Of course the spiritual side of me knows that everything is perfect just as it is. But on days like today, it is my emotions that rule the proverbial roost. I miss them today. I miss them badly. I miss them in such a way it makes me angry today that they are gone.

Once I hit the angry state, every sad and hurting relationship in my life starts floating up to the surface reminding me of other hurts and pains, and losses that have occurred over my lifetime. Why this, why that, why did this have to happen, and why didn’t this work out. Why do I feel so separated from all these people I have held so close to my heart all these years of my life? Why can’t I just let it go, and let it be?

On almost any day other than a few days either side of today, I know there are no answers or somewhere I can point to and say this is the reason, this is why, this is what I need to learn and I haven’t and that is why it continues. Except when I feel this way, almost any day does not matter. Only this moment does. So now what do I do?

I do the only things I know how to do. I feel the pain and the hurt of all the times when any relationship with someone I hold near and dear has gone south and it hurts like hell. I swim in the anger and the hurt. I wallow in the despair. I feel the anger of what feels like being shut out. I pretend it has never happened in anyone’s life but mine.

While I am feeling these things, and feeling quite sorry for myself, I also wait. I abide. I accept. Because I know there is no other recourse. Either accept or float in a pool of self pity. Eventually night falls, and bedtime arrives. I have burned so much energy letting these feelings absorb my all, I am tired. I go to bed, seethe a few more minutes, and eventually fall asleep.

If it is a special night I meet with all of them, or my guide, and and we talk and laugh about how I feel. If is a normal night, I sleep a hard sleep, and the morning comes. Along with the morning are new feelings, and new drives. Little by little as the morning flows, I am back to my normal self, and the world is a wonderful place, and didn’t I take a long ride on the pity train yesterday?

As much as I would like it to be, it is not all about me all the time. We spend an incredible amount of our lifetime playing parts in other peoples lives, and helping them learn what they need to know. Other people do the same for us, and sometimes they find pain in the pausing of a relationship too.

Better perhaps is a thought from, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. If I remember correctly, “The more it hurts, the more important they were to us…”

And life goes on

I see many people around me, whose only clue the seasons have changed from cold to warm is the fact they turned off their heat, and turned on their air conditioning. They are in a constant cycle, or rut if you will. I bet if I ask them if they had any song birds around their house, they would be hard pressed to remember if they have seen a bird. If I ask them about rabbits or squirrels, their only response would be as it relates to their driving.

They live in this little protected cocoon. The temperature is always just so, it never rains, the wind never blows, the birds never sing except when they are trying to sleep in. These same folks if they exercise at all, exercise in the air conditioned comfort of a gym, either at home, or a club. Their only contact with the natural world they should be a part of is going from a building to their vehicle, or vehicle to a building.

I do not think that we should be outside every possible moment. I do think we should make time each day to enjoy the world around us. Not just marking time in an indoor environment where nothing ever changes. What motivates me to get outside besides the fact that I enjoy nature, is I know my death is just around the corner. I do not know when that time is, but I know that every minute of every day my death is closer than it was just a moment ago.

I want to feel the sun on my face. I want to feel the wind blow. I want to feel cold. I want to be too hot and break out into a sweat. I don’t get upset over the shower water being a little cool because I am the last one in the shower, and we have to leave soon. It is either a cool shower, or no shower, but I know that I am alive in the shower. I want to feel my fingers get stiff from cold at times. I want to get a little sunburn now and then.

Because my death is just around the corner, I want to feel all these things, and sometimes I search them out. When I was not quite as mortal as I am now, I would take some risks with my body, and perhaps my life. I want to know I am alive. Because before I know it, my body will be in a refrigerator somewhere. My body will spend a day to two there, but it won’t feel any cold, it won’t know the lights are out. My body won’t know it has been taken out of the refrigerator and placed in a coffin. My body won’t know what happens after that either.

When I look around and see people driving with their ac on, and their favorite music playing, I wonder if they realize that there will not be a big change between how they live at present, the day of their death, and the few days that follow their death?

For myself, I want to know I am alive, and I am as much a part of the natural world as I can be. I do not want to go from a temperature controlled life to a temperature controlled death. How about you? Have you given any thought to the natural world, and your part in it? Is the natural world a part of your life? I hope so, because if the natural world is not a part of your life, you are cheating yourself out of half of your life.

If you live an inside life, go outside, get hot, get cold, get wet when it rains. Know you are alive, and the world is real!

What I am thinking about tonight however is an age old problem we all face, our impending death. I was thinking about death the other day, as I listened to a mother with four children yelling, and telling her children how bad and stupid they are. I was thinking…what would she prefer to tell them if she knew that shortly after she loaded everyone into the car and left the parking lot a fatal accident would occur where either all four children, or herself would be killed in an accident.

Would she be saying the things she was yelling at them, or would she be saying something else to them? Occasionally, I am at a loss with people especially the yelling woman as to what they would do or say differently, if anything knowing it may be last thing they ever uttered. In some cases people are so beaten down that they would not find anything good to say to their loved ones as their parting words. Others of course are so beat up that they would want to get in one last cutting remark as their parting shot to ensure that those left behind would know for the rest of their lives how that person felt about them.

Recently I learned about a person I know who’s Mother has become suddenly terminally ill with possibly only days left of her life. The family is with her at the hospital, or as many that can be there are at the hospital. Another person I know who is not family went there today to be with the family. I suppose that is a good thing they feel that way, but I do not know who I would want around in that situation who is not immediate family.

Suddenly the time they will have with their Mother is so restricted, between the things the doctors and nurses have to do to the dying person, the times of going in and out of coma states, and the other things that go on, it seems somehow selfish to me to want to be there to take even a few seconds of family time to satisfy my own ego, or sooth my guilt, if I had any.

The way I see it though is no matter how or what we feel, it is only right to respect the needs of the family. For me, that means I would need to be asked to be there rather than just show up and try to part of the process. I think others who can actually contribute to the process somehow, feel the need to go and do whatever it is they feel they need to do.

As for the person dying, it is a one way trip with a spot for one passenger only, it is not a family event in that respect. I see it as being born but in reverse. When we were born we may have been aware of the process in another reality, but we sure are ignorant of it in this reality. Dying must be about the same way. We are cognizant of the process here, but we are completely oblivious of what is happening to us as our body dies.

No matter what my personal feelings are, they are only my feelings. I can only speak about what is true for me. I hope when the process is complete, that all those involved received whatever it is they needed from the process. Death is never pretty, yet being left behind is painful for those weep and mourn for their own pain. It is important to find a way to put into the correct perspective. Without knowing and being aware of our own pending death, we often neglect to live a proper life – such as the woman yelling at her children over nothing.

What stands out about their dying is something they each said near the end of their time. I do not think they thought what they said was anything profound, but their comments have become a sort of life jacket for me. The first person had more wrong with them than right. Their doctor on one of their last visits was surprised to see them and expressed awe that they were still alive? It was not the Doctors greatest moment, and I am sure the Doctor would play that scene over if they could. When the doctor blurted this out to them, they simply said, “What am I supposed to do, fall over dead?”

The second person in my thoughts spent most of their life trying to kill themselves smoking cigarettes. After fifty plus years they got their wish. As they lay on the last bed they would ever lay on, they were very scared, and kept saying over and over as if it would make a difference, “I can’t breathe, I can’t catch my breath.” While I felt their pain, and I could see and feel their fear, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder what they thought two packs of cigarettes a day was supposed to do for them, except this end?

The third person was crippled from a stroke, and also suffered other serious health problems. One day towards the end of his time on a warm sunny July day, he asked me to take him to a lake where the young women would be out sunbathing. I complied and pulled him in his wheel chair through the deep sand as he was ogling the young girl’s working on their tans as we passed by. Eventually he had enough, and motioned we could go back to the car. I asked him why he wanted to see the young girls out sun bathing? He had a vocabulary of about one hundred words, but he made me understand that inside the crippled, tired body, was a man, and for him there was nothing in the world more beautiful on that day than a woman, or in this case a number of women out sunbathing.

I never thought much about what they had to say as their end happened. In fact I never thought about it much at all until many years later when I started to realize that I was mortal too. Two of them met their end knowing they had lived their lives as full and completely as they were able to. The third person met their end in fear, and perhaps shock in their final moments, wondering how they ever arrived at that point, and what they did to deserve it.

I choose carefully about my life, and I think everyone should choose to live life as it comes. This is our one way ticket in this life, and we need to take the ride with our eyes open, and our brains turned on. We have our one body, whether it is healthy or sickly, beautiful or plain, it is all we have. It seems apparent that we are here for a reason, and we have to see our time here through to the end.

What I learned from two of these people is life is worth living – every breath of it. Their is no tragedy, or health problem that can stop us until our bodies quit that should be allowed to keep us from wringing every joy and happiness out of our lives while we still can. From the third person I learned the value of making responsible decisions with my health. Doing something stupid, but taking no responsibility for my actions is not a life choice I make. What a shame to end life that way – terrified and incredulous, looking for something else to blame, looking for anything to blame except us, and not accepting we created this end our self, and we alone are responsible for it.

From thinking about babies and the frustration they go through because their wants advances their abilities, that we in the end of our lives suffer from our bodies advancing our thinking! We do not remember the frustrations we lived through from about six months to three or four years old when we wanted to do something, but we could not, because we had not developed our fine motor skills yet.

Our diets change too as the years go by. One day we are walking along and it is lunch time. We think we want pizza for lunch. Our favorite pizza, the same combination we have been eating for at least twenty years now. We order, receive, and start to eat our favorite pizza. Suddenly it does not taste as satisfying as it did just last week when we treated ourselves to a slice of pizza.

Even our thinking changes in our later years. I can not speak for women, but for men, sex is the main brain topic from waking to sleeping, and maybe during sleep too. Men go through their lives talking with women in every conceivable circumstance, yet in their minds they are usually thinking about sex with the women of interest at the moment. It is just the way men are built. Suddenly one day a man realizes he is talking with a woman and something is different! It takes a few seconds, but he realizes that for the first time in his adolescent to adult life, he sees the woman in front of him as a person, not as a possible sex object.

Some parts of getting old are not so interesting or benign. For some of us little things we took for granted such as proper body function now quit working in the most humiliating, or embarrassing ways. We become incontinent. We become a gas factory that could probably supply the Country’s methane gas needs daily. We have trouble digesting foods that we used to love, or certain foods now give us a stomach ache.
 
When we think we can not take any more, the real diseases set in. We have high blood pressure, heart trouble, eye problems, back problems, pains and aches that come and go and sometimes come and decide to stay.

Most people of course do not find this time of life too enjoyable. How can they with their bodies falling apart? I am starting to wonder though how can we not enjoy this time of ending? Our bodies have given us great service for so many years, and they are now getting tired. Our bodies are now taking control of the end of our lives, and no matter what we would like to do about it, what we can do is mostly limited to observation.
 
Our trouble is we can not just observe, we have to observe with opinion and emotion. I think we need to become more proactive and observe with happiness, and contentment, possibly even enjoyment. We may not be able to control getting old and dying, but we can control how we react to it.

We can choose how what emotions we allow into our lives as our bodies start to do what is natural after so many years of life. I hope for myself at least I can find enjoyment in the way my body shuts itself down. I can not do anything about it, and I enjoyed my body at its best, so the least I can do is enjoy the idea, it is doing what it thinks is best for me.

In essence, I can enjoy and appreciate that my body is doing the best it can with the every day more limited resources it has to work with. This seems more natural to me, and much better than being bitter and resentful that my body which served me so well, is now shutting itself down because it has no more to give.

There is an understanding with them, and those in his position, or at least it seems. We both know that this time when we see each other may be the last. When we last said goodbye we both knew it would likely be the last time we may ever speak, hug, or shake hands. In situations like this when we live so far apart, usually on the last hours of visiting, there comes a unspoken acknowledgment that  the next time I see one of them it may as they lay in their coffin.

I don’t know if these last hours of every visit become more real, take on more meaning or just happen on a more mature level. Maybe it is all these things happening together. If anything is between us or there is anything that needs to be said, it has to be said in those last few hours. After that, as is the situation now, anything being said is a one way conversation.

My end of the conversation has always been quite open. In any conversation there are always levels of closeness that we can approach. Usually in those last time I may see you conversations, we end up trading feelings over our lives and about each other. Perhaps the conversation is a little stylized, or formal, but it seems everything that can be said, is said.

I do not know how I will be when I am one the one who will be leaving first, but the generation of those going now in my family are tough people. They had a hard childhood, and they had a hard life, even when life was easy, it is hard for them. They did not have a lot of the support systems we enjoy. They are not comfortable with their feelings, much of the time unless those feelings are in the realm of anger. Anger was always the easiest feeling for them to express. I think if someone was not initiated into their world, would not know, that many times anger is their highest expression of love for one another. It was all they have, or all they can comfortably express.

Conversations are usually pretty straight forward. They will say something to make me know they may never see me again. I say something acknowledging that I too know I may never see them again alive. Then they something about something in their life, and how I must have felt about it. That is the catch in the conversation. It puts both our feelings at a time and place of something that happened probably years earlier. My answer for whatever they have brought up as an example, is my expression of how I really feel about them, their life, and I how I feel about how they lived their life.

This repeats usually two or three times, each time a different event of the time we spent a part of our lives together. I get to live in their life for those seconds, and they are giving me an opportunity to let hem know how I really feel about how they lived their life. Usually they soften up for a few minutes, and remind me of special times they remember about me, which is their way of letting me know how they really feel, as if I didn’t know already.

That is usually all there is, as there is not much more to be said. Everything is right between us, and we both know that if we never see each other again, that it is okay. We each have said our piece. I bring my bags out to the car, say my final goodbyes, hug them goodbye, and head down the street.

Usually up until now I see them again. But as in all things, that time passes, and these days it seems saying goodbye is really saying goodbye.

I took off a month of work, left my family alone, travelled across country, and stayed at her home with her in October/November. I was there twenty four hours a day seven days a week. Or most of it any way. She had told me back in July, that as the time got closer, and it looked like she did not know what she was doing, she did know what she was doing, and it was okay.

Okay, I could understand that. My father in the weeks before he went, did everything he could (or so it seemed) to help me hate him. So my Mother saying this was not something that shocked me. When I was with my Mom, after about a week, I needed a few hours to myself, time away from reality. I asked my Mom if she was okay with me leaving the house for an evening, and she said yes, she would be okay.

It was close to freezing when I left. Less than two hours later I received a phone call from a neighbor that my Mom was outside laying on the ground. They called the ambulance, I raced to the hospital. About ten days later, there was a repeat, this time she was in the back yard, the weather was still freezing. Repeat the story, a few days in the hospital, and home she came. Some days I thought she was really there, and other days I was not sure who was home, if anybody.

One afternoon she wanted to go for a ride. I helped her in the car, started driving, and she started singing. Not a song from her childhood, or a song from the romantic days of her life, but another song. This song had one line, and the same rhythm. For over two hours I drove my Mom around listening to her one line song. I want to mention first that I rarely heard my Mom use any off color language in her life. On this day for over two hours, I listened to her sing, “Thanks for being a prick.” Over and over again. The fact that she was constantly grabbing at the steering wheel trying to turn the car into the ditch was minor compared to the song. She didn’t want to go home, fwiw, so we rode around the countryside, her singing her song, and grabbing at the steering wheel now and again.

A few days later she seemed to want to talk about her life. I asked her something about my Dad. “I don’t know why I married that son-of-a-bitch”, was the only thing she had to say about him. She told me some things about a Great Aunt I never knew I had. She talked a little bit about her Dad, Sisters, and Brothers, and that was about it. End of the end of my life conversation.

Because of all the problems with her body dying, it was impossible for her to come and live with me. I live at altitude, she could not survive without oxygen, and she kept pulling it off. Want to or not, it was time for me to pack up, and go back home. Over the next few weeks, there were some phone conversations, but they were not good, they were pretty ugly actually. She called me on the fifteenth to wish me a Merry Christmas. A week went by, and the phone call came. The hospital made the call as easy as they could, and I appreciated their effort.

It was a day of introspection for me, as I went over that month in my mind. Fortunately for most of us, each day is not our last, and there is time to fix the something we did, or at least acknowledge our faults. I can not guess if that month was really a month with my Mom, or with a shell. A month where things were said, and I never knew if they were true, or even thought about.

Of course it was an hours walk today with a cold stiff breeze, thinking about those last days with my Mom to realize it does not matter. She’s gone, and I am left to walk, and wonder.

I had turtles when I was very young. I only remember because I did not know how to take care of them when it was time for them to hibernate, they started to stink instead of sleep like I was told they would do. While I never learned how to create a place for turtles to hibernate, I did have a quick lesson in death.

Next it was Guppies I had in a glass one gallon aquarium. I was given some weeds to put in so the guppies had some place to hide. They hid so well, when my Mom decided to clean the aquarium we counted over ninety guppies in various stages of growth. Deciding there was too much weed, the population was quickly reduced by guppy cannibalism. I learned about predatory behavior from Guppies.

We also had dogs over the years. One was a Spaniel/Labrador mix who had been hit by a car as a pup. His stomach muscles were hurt, and his belly was very low to the ground. One of the neighbors accused him of jumping a six foot fence and breeding with their Chihuahua. I was too young to understand about sex, but I did learn that sometimes people tried to pass off stories that were not completely true. That poor dog could barely climb stairs without dragging his belly let alone jump.

A few years later another dog who had made into his late twenties was dying in a painful way. My Mom and Dad talked it over, and decided the best thing to do was put him down. Put him down meant a bullet in the head in those days. My Mom took out the vacuum cleaner, and furiously started vacuuming an already clean floor as my father went outside with the dog, and did what had to be done. He was gone a while, but when he came in my Mom and I knew the dog was asleep, never to waken again. I learned about sorrow, and loss from that dog.

Next was a horse my folks had bought me. He was a Tennessee Walker colt. I could not ride him as he was too young, so he roamed the pasture with my sisters horse. One week we had some friends horses in our pasture, along with our own, and they were close to fighting. It was cold outside, so I dressed in a jacket with a hood and went out into the pasture among the horses. My horse picked me up by the hood of my coat and shook me all the way to the fence, and then threw me over the fence. I did not know it at the time, but I was given a harsh lesson in love by animals for their human family members. I do remember crying for about thirty minutes though….

Some years later the Spaniel/Labrador was at the end of his life. He was arthritic, and moving even slightly was very painful for him He could no longer walk, and did not care to eat or drink water. A family discussion was held, and it was decided that I would be the one to put him down. I had to carry him from the basement to the appointed place. I remember how hard it was to see where I was walking, stumbling at times. I said what I could manage to get out, and pulled the trigger. As much as it hurt, I knew what I did had to be done for his benefit. I learned about life, and love that day – and the pain of loss.

Many more animals came and left over the years, all of them leaving me with those special lessons that only a pet can give. I am grateful for all of them, and hope there are many more pets waiting for their turn in my life.

When I was a child we lived out in the country, sort of. There were neighbors around us, and you saw a car going down the road once in a while, but not very often. The population of my school was a little over eight hundred at the time and that included kindergarten to grade twelve, so there weren’t a lot of us. Brad must have been the ripe old age of six or seven when he first started showing up at my house. Brad was the only boy to ever show up to play with me besides the much older boys who were interested in my sister. Being little and alone in the country, I was thrilled to have a play mate.

Except Brad was not all that good of a play mate. We would play sometimes, and have a lot of fun, though most times we would end up fighting, usually with me taking the worst of it, being smaller and younger. I did not know any better, and Brad was the only friend I had outside of school. My Dad always thought I should beat Brad up and be done with it, but I did not have it in me at that time. Bradley’s family was very different. Brad’s Mom was a rather stern woman with little to say other than correcting or berating Brad. Brad’s Dad was very quiet and serious. They both drank I knew, everyone I knew that was an adult drank, or almost everyone, so drinking was not unusal. Brad’s folks just did not seem to have fun when they drank, and that was unusual.

One summer day Brad was supposed to come over and play with me, just getting off of being grounded for a few weeks. My Mom received a phone call from a neighbor down the road. My Mom suddenly was all shook up, she told me Brad had been in an accident! We jumped in the car and took off down the road to a four way intersection about three-quarter’s of a mile away. There was Brad lying in the middle of the road, moaning, crying, and sort of calling for his Mother, all in all pretty scary looking. His Mom showed up and what she said to him, I would rather not say, but it was not nice.

According to the driver of the car that hit him, Brad was on his bicycle and raced right into the intersection. If Brad had been two seconds earlier or later, he would not have a broken arm, a broken leg, and some broken ribs. Brad spent five months that year in various casts. Brad had a repeat accident a few years later with another broken leg, smashed ribs, and two broken collar bones. Same thing, Brad was hit on bicycle crossing a highway, at the other end of the road from our houses.

Fast forward to three years later. Brad has no friends. Almost everyone near his age is scared of him, because he is so wild and scary. You didn’t know if Brad would want to talk, or hit you with his fist – or something worse. I remember Brad the last day of school that year. Brad was on his bicycle after school, riding through the small line of buses, yelling at kids and threatening them. He had red and blue finger paint on his face and a stick in his hand he was hitting people with as he rode by. He also had a trash can lid hanging off his back. The teachers and bus drivers chased him, but he just laughed and mocked them.

I no longer lived near Brad by then. Brad had spent some months away from his home for reasons I did not know about, so we were no longer that close. About three or four weeks later after school was out I was going to Brad’s funeral. Brad was killed on the same highway he had been hit on a few years earlier. This time there was no saving him. Brad has lost almost half of his face, and his rib cage was held up by wire as he lay in his coffin. His Mom told me both of his legs and one arm had been broken too.

I felt real bad about Brad when he was killed, I cried over him after I was finally alone. At the same time, I could not help but think that maybe this was as good as Brad was ever going to get in this lifetime?. Maybe it was for the best that Brad died at the ripe old age of thirteen and a half? I do not think about Brad now days as much as I used to. Life has a way about it in that it keeps moving onward presenting new obstacles. But when I see other children I think are being abused, or have been abused, I always think of Brad. I still wonder sometime if he is better off where ever he is now. I think for the time he lived in and the family he was a part of, he is better off, not that that makes it better.

Brad would be in a prison somewhere serving a life sentence, or worse if he were alive today. Maybe if Brad were born today, he would have had a chance at a better life, as times are so much different now than they were when we were kids. I would like to think so. I still miss Brad some times. Brad was not always a good friend, but he was my first and almost only friend all those years ago.