Sunday, March 24, 2013

ghosts and pseudo ghosts

When I was 21, I scored a job as an office assistant for a local CPA. He runs his small practice out of his house, and when I started, it was just the two of us working in the office, and both of us helping out with his invalid mother. 

In the eight years that I've known him, I've gone from full time to part time to telecommute to full time to part time again. He's essentially become less of a boss and more a close friend (and benefactor, throwing me work when I'm broke and loans when times are tough). Sometime on Thursday, he had a severe seizure (did you know that a low-fat, low-calorie, low-sodium diet can bottom out your sodium levels and cause seizures? now you do. Eat salt, people.), so he's been in the hospital for the past few days, and I'm watching his crippled, geriatric dog while he's recuperating.  


hay dawg


My boss is an older guy, in his early 60's, and the thought that he could have died that night has weighed heavily on me this weekend. Also weighing on me is that, in the time I've known him, four members of his family, that I knew personally, have passed away. I knew eventually I'd be old enough to have to deal with family passing in my friendships. I just didn't think it'd be in my twenties. Oh, Death. Mortality, dirt naps, big sleep, that permanent absence. I understand death: you're born, you age or you get sick, and you die. Everything dies (except reality television). But, like most people, I have a difficult time accepting it. The abruptness gets to me. Everything shutting down without your consent. It's so empty and weird.

But life goes on. More people will be born, more people will come into your life. It doesn't fill the void, but it makes the void easier to deal with it. And that's the small silver lining. 

That and the fact that you can come back and haunt people*. That's gotta be worth leaving the plane of the living. 


umm... someone wet my pants




*ghosts totally exist. Anyone who's had a pet suddenly sit up in the middle of the night and stare intensely at nothing and even growl knows this. /unsettling
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