Is it the effect of a modern plague called Covid-19, or perhaps the famous people who have died since the beginning of the year --- broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, musicians Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Lisa Marie Presley, Burt Bacharach .... ? Death is a reality of Life. However, I don't recall the public count being what it is now - starting at the beginning of the year instead of the end. (I checked a list of famous people who had died so far and admit I had not heard of most of them.)
In recent days the Turkey-Syria Earthquake - their Big One - has taken thousands of lives.Thousands more are injured and in need of medical care. Thousands more survived but lost everything and are homeless. The smell of death hangs over in the air, while others die beneath the rubble awaiting rescue that may never come. Teams from all over the world have sent help, including a group called Samaritan's Purse, a Protestant Christian group known more for sending shoe boxes with this and that and promoting Jesus - to poor children all over the world. They sent a plane containing all that it takes to set up a field hospital. Teams from Russia as well as China are there. Teams with sniffer dogs from Germany. Teams from our United States... With hundreds of buildings down, every rescue is greeted with joy and often thanks to Allah. *But Allah or whatever It's Name Is, allows these things to happen, too busy to care. I say that humans need to stop associating natural disasters as punishment from God. Who wants to worship or live their life around such a character?
It also seems the Idaho Four murders, with Bryan Kohberger the only suspect, has not been forgotten by the media. Of 35,000 murders in the U.S. every year, you can delete all too common gang warfare and domestic violence as interesting unless it's truly bizarre or includes a famous person. Only a few murders are taken up by the True Crime Internet community as worthy of their every suspicion. Finally a few posters are posting why they do not believe he did it or did it alone, or do not believe he will be Found Guilty are coming up. (I hope the Gag Order remains. I really do not want to hear from Kaylee's family lawyer. I note that while other murder victim's familys public records of arrests and divorces have been publicized no one seems to know how her family has money. It's clear that of the Four, it is her parents who do have it.)
We are obsessed with Death.
My recall may be a little fuzzy regarding Carlos Castaneda's reveals in his books, likely read by me years ago, one here and one there, but was there not some wisdom relayed to him via Don Juan or some other shaman, about Death being an Informant? Well, if one keeps in mind that time alive is limited, it might influence one to stay focused on what one wants to accomplish. But, likely like you, I too can be interrupted by hunger, and distracted by all the things one does to stay alive, and a certain poverty of advantage. For instance, I got up and made myself a peanut butter on whole wheat bread toast sandwich just now, but rushed to eat it so I wouldn't loose my focus for this article.
I'm writing this on Sunday morning - that is to say yesterday morning - because I'm truly beginning to think I'm starting to be aware on some level when people have passed. I'll clarify in a moment.
I mentioned my friend who has been in stage four lung cancer for about five years, defying all predictions. I mentioned he does not want me to be involved. I should have clarified that he does not want me to be involved in his care not that he doesn't want me to care about him. What happens is that most of the time when I catch up with him or see him, such as at the Christmas potluck we both attended, he says he does not want to talk and I respect that. Yet once in a while he will blurt the latest such as that his doctors said he had a month to six months, which was actually about nine months ago. I feel he does not want to feel himself to be a burden but needs to vent. When he told me that I said, "You have outlived the predictions again and again." Based on his symptoms I did some research about lung cancer and what happens to the body in the last days. He has those symptoms and has had them, a lack of oxygen giving his skin a mottled appearance. So what is keeping him going? Is it Fate? Stubborness? That he has had very strong heart ? Fear of Death? Something more that he was meant to do when he took on the Assignment? Well, something is going on that is not explainable.
This is an example of my trying to use science to predict and prediction as a way of being prepared.
On perhaps the best of the true crime podcasts, Surviving the Survivor, the host, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, mentions this Jewish saying. MAY THEIR MEMORY BE A BLESSING. Just the other day I was thinking that the memories of my dog, who passed in July, are all a blessing. She was a blessing to me from the day I got her to that last day and so often some memory of something that happened or something that she did, showing how perceptive she was, comes to me and puts a smile on my face. I can rarely say that about others I've encountered in this life who have passed or even many of those who have left my life who are still alive.
What happens is that I start thinking about someone or something that happened in my life years ago, someone who was once important in some way but who I moved on from or who moved on from me, someone I have not thought about in years, and then I find out they recently died. Could it be that as a person approaches their death they are reviewing their life and thinking of me (as well as others) and that's what I (they) pick up on? I have to emphasize these are not people like my friend with the stage four lung cancer, but people who I would consider to have been forgotten.
A couple months ago I started thinking about a friend I had whose mom was friends with my mom. Our episode of friendship ended because of her drinking, or to be more specific, I barely ever drink and after one of her cocktails I was drunk and did not want more. She openly ridiculed me for not being willing or able to keep up with her. (This happened on a few Friday nights in her mom's kitchen. I suppose her mom felt that at least we were not in a bar or on the road.) I had figured her parents had probably long ago passed but I found out that both of them had just recently died. My mom's friend died a few days after her husband!
And then, about a week or so ago I started thinking about an employer I had, a husband and wife who owned a business back in the day, and what it was to work for them. They were greedy people, cooking the books while underpaying and working their employees hard. We didn't get breaks or lunch which was not legal, so we could not leave the place to even go out and make a phone call. He had been a lawyer. If they had no spiritually driven morals, one would think at least they could obey the law. Their children were spoiled brats. Their son at 12 years old started screaming at me one day, telling me how I worked for HIM. I finally quit without another job lined up, unable to find another job while so entrapped. They acted as if we owed them and were owned by them. Though paid an unlivable wage, they resented that I quit.
I'd started writing about that experience, not for publication, and then what the hell, I put his name in the internet, as in my mind the man still looked as he had the day I quit, and it turned out he had been buried the day before. (The obituary mentioned his law school, the firm he had worked for, the business they owned. The rotten brat son went into public heath and might have been working selflessly while independently wealthy, to provide for the poor. Requests were made for donations to a food bank!) This means that he was dying while I was writing about what it was to work for people like that. (Obits rarely have anything bad to say about a person.)
Geeze, I said to myself, I really need to talk to someone like James Van Praagh about this! In a video this psychic medium says that when a person has their life review after death they get to feel the happiness and pleasure they gave others as well as the sadness and pain they gave others. Better or Worse, if someone has wronged you in a way where it effects the rest of your life, they get to feel that too. Every damn thing they set in motion.
At least Van Praagh is not in the "It's All Good" mentality.
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
Note Feb 13th. I have no idea why the font on this blogger is not holding firm. The problem seems to be when I use the medium font. I just went through this post and fixed the crazy font changes.
