feeling very mortal

usually i don't think much about death and dying, but his week it seems to have been an ongoing topic. right now, i would like to turn that page, but i am still bogged down in dealing with the changes in my life, all seemingly involved in death.

this past week obviously i had the kee situation, which is still with me like a cape over me. also this week as student's mother died from cancer on friday. she was 36 and left 2 kids, my student being the oldest. a teacher in the building lost her father. two students in our school were expecting a baby over xmas. i saw on the email that she was back from homebound, and then i saw the two of them in the hall. i walked up to both and said "hey! how's the baby? are you getting any sleep?" i didn't realize then that the baby had been born stillborn. the father told me this after the mother walked away. i don't think anyone could have created a hole big enough for me to hurl myself into...i didn't mean to do any harm, but in that kind of situation, you just feel awful. but that wasn't the real problem there. it was that those two had lost a baby. they aren't married, but the boy had really stepped up to the plate and was taking responsibility for the baby. he is still there for her. and i felt so bad for her. i can't imagine losing a baby after having carried it to term. that was a whole new spin for me on parenting and death.

the 50th anniversary of buddy holly's death by plane crash was also last week, and there were so many incidents in the paper of some sort of death...plane crashes, fires in australia, bus crashes, and a whole week that the RTD spent doing a series in the paper on the virginia tech massacres.

tonight one of the teachers at school called to let me know that one of our assistant principals had a heart attack in the gym after school on friday.

all this is making me feel pretty mortal, and i don't usually dwell on that. i am not sure if my anxiety is about the future, or from the past. i have to admit that kee's death affected me in a way i didn't think it would. he was a link to the "old life" at the old house, a time when things were relatively peaceful and happy at our house. kee was also the first stray i "rescued" and he was symbolic in ways i don't think even i knew about.

it seemed fitting that all three of us were there when he passed, and all three of us had to deal with our grief and memories by ourselves, in our own way. all of these things make me think i probably need to STOP thinking, but maybe thinking isn't the issue here. maybe it is FEELING, and i am not too good anymore about keeping those things down. i have lived most of my life stuffing that stuff down, but now i don't. that leads to a whole new set of issues and burdens. in some ways, i guess i am not much different than a kid. dealing with my feelings now is sort of uncharted territory. very confusing.