Death

In my life I have experienced so many deaths. Death is terrible. In war there was so many bodies of so many men, I couldn't even look. Us soldiers would try to make death light. And develop a sense of humor about it. Death is real, and death is not funny, but when you are around it so often. The sorrow and pain of death disappears. You become desensitized. I experienced a death at a very young age. I was only nine when my girlfriend of the time died of a brain tumor. We were in love, it was young love. Young love or not, we were in love. I didn't understand what it was like to loose someone. At the funeral home I felt sick and in disbelief. I would have dreams about her being alive. Linda said in a dream once that death, "It's like being inside a book that nobody's reading...An old one. It's up on a library shelf so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading." I do this with all the people I loved. I dream about them and pretend that they really were alive. Curt Lemon, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Linda, and sometimes I even dream that the young child in me are skating around on the ice.