A Rough Day On The Range...

As some of you might know, my department at work has been consolidated so everyone is being crosstrained for new duties. I have gone into a more detailed explanation with a few who have seemed interested (or at least did a good job faking interest) but I will not go into all the odds and ends in this email because lets face it, work, for the bulk of us that dwell for eight plus hours in office cubicle land can be stressful and boring to hear about. For that reason, and for my own focus on enjoying my hours outside the confides of the business I will spare you all and just mention one category of my job.

I work in retirement plans for a brokerage firm so naturally my job has me deal with death quite regularly. Many times it happens to the elderly, those in their late 70s, 80s or even beyond. And while I am sure that it is very sad for their families, since we have all experienced the heartbreaking loss of an older relative, it is also somewhat inevitably expected in the great time table of life. The past two days I came across incidents that strayed from this interpretation of the circle of life. One was a mid forty year old man that committed suicide by hanging himself. In the death certificate went into detail about the electric cord that he used and the type of sewer pipe that bared the weight of his body. Although you may try not to paint the mental picture it is near impossible to do so. The second incident occurred when a branch representative called our department to notify us that 3 death beneficiary forms were going to soon be faxed over. She unfortunately did not spare us the details of it being a family of three (mom, dad and son) that were suddenly killed in a car crash. Information like this really makes you evaluate how precious life is.

I have never really had a paranoia with death. Yes, it does scare me but I know that it will happen to all of us at sometime. Hopefully later than sooner for those that I care about. Perhaps it is because I have seen it from such a young age. So much in fact that I was shocked when in college one of my friends mentioned that she had never attended a calling hours wake before. From a young age I had been exposed to attending calling hours and funerals. My mom worked closely with a VFW hall where there were many older members. They became like second grandparents to me and I would tote along with my mom when she went to pay her last respects. The back of this hall was also where I saw a murdered prostitute in the dumpster of the cheap motel adjacent to the hall. Death again, but that time it left more of a mark for a long time. It was death in the most grotesque sense that I could imagine. In addition, my parents both had best friends that were funeral directors. Kind of spooky but not as odd as the fact that they also had childhood dogs bearing the name "Tippy" that both, no joke, one day ran away and never returned. When a family member died it was always a tough call to make Dale or Tommy do the arrangements at their respected establishments. However, even with the modest amount of exposure that I have had growing up, it still leaves my stomach turning a little to see life tragically snatched away.