The Big Sigh

Someone from my 8th grade graduating class was laid to rest today.  To the best of my knowledge (and I could be very wrong), she is the first from the Blessed Sacrament School class of 1974 to die.  For a number of years I’ve consoled my dread of aging with the knowledge that at least none of the core group with which I spent kindergarten through 8th grade had died.  That meant we were still pretty young, right?  Well, that illusion has now been shattered.

One thing I always think about after the death of someone I know, be it a relative or a friend or an old classmate, is how they were just here.  Right after the funeral I think about how that person was alive just a few days before.  Now they’re lifeless in the ground.  Often they had no idea they were on the way out.  It seems so strange; here and conscious –even vital – then gone.