Four Deaths in Six Months

It seems that my junior year in college is destined to be remembered as the year of death.

Last semester, an uncle, a close family friend, and my only surviving grandfather all passed away within the first month's worth of classes. The rest of 2008 just seemed to drag after that. I had hit burnout in all my classes before my classes had a chance to become stressful. By December, I was ready to start the new year and a new semester. I just wanted to leave all that stress behind.

As of a few hours ago, I've discovered that the stress has followed me into 2009.

The first month went well enough. I started to get a hang of my new classes, was given the opportunity to direct two plays for the one acts this semester, and things just seemed to be going smoothly. Then after returning home after a stressful drive, which I will opt to not go into, I got an e-mail from my father. My great aunt Pauline passed away. I wasn't close to her, which is unfortunate because I kind of wish I was. I'd met her a handful of times and I've never really heard a bad thing said about her. What makes her death especially stressful on me is that it is the second death in five months that hits my father's side of the family especially hard. I worry about my grandmother, who in that time has lost her husband and a sister, and my father, who has lost his father and an aunt. Out of my parents and I, I'm not sure who has suffered the most. Neither one of them shows any emotion about any death away from funerals [I never even saw my father shed a tear or blow his nose at his father's funeral, even though I know he was very close to him]. All I do is bottle the emotions up once I have a grasp on them and move on, only to emotionally implode from them when given the right trigger.

For me, this is the forth death in a six month period of someone I knew and cared about. Each one has hit me hard emotionally in one way or another. After my grandfather's death, the last of the three last year, my mother told me the tale that death happens in threes. Now I'm left wondering if there's two more to die soon and how soon they may be.

I won't be making Pauline's funeral, unfortunately. My father already told me he didn't expect me to be able to, and he's right. My classes themselves aren't what's keeping me. The auditions for the one acts are Tuesday and that's most likely when the funeral will be. The two plays I'm directing this semester are the biggest thing that is keeping me going right now, and because of that their priority with me is extremely high. I'd like to make the funeral, but I have responsibilities here that I need to attend to. Besides, my family isn't expecting me to be able to make it and so I'm not letting anyone down. I'm just tired of death, and the people who keep me going the most are my friends.

-Josh