I’m going to need 2011 to be death proof for me. I really need ONE YEAR where no one close to me dies. Seriously, I just need one year. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I’d more so like a Year of Magical Living instead.

While there are four people I mainly focus on,…..

Veola Parker – my great grandmother

James Franklin Pyles – ex boyfriend/best friend in college

Tinuola Olateju – baby sister of one of my best friends. She was 15.

Maura Desouza - baby sister of one of my best friends. She was 22

….The truth is that EVERY YEAR I have gone to a funeral or mourned the loss of a friend or family member since I was about 14 years old. That’s a lot of deaths. It started with my Aunt Minnie, who is the person behind my ” Rain equals Nature is Crying for you” beliefs. Actually, to be quite honest, it started with the murder of my grandmother Barbara when I was three years old. I have yet to write about her here. Sigh.

Then there was just a ripple effect of deaths. Uncle John Henry. Uncle Robert Lee. Uncle Jack. My Aunt’s finance, James. So many of my Wheaton friends. And I get it!!! Trust me. I’m not afraid of death. I know I will die. It happens every day but there are some of you out there who have never been to a funeral. Some of you have never had a close family member pass away. Some of you have NEVER had to help plan the funeral of a fifteen year old. Some of you have never lost your mind for a second time because the person who helped you find it in the first place died suddenly.

Some of you no nothing about death but as you can see from my tag “Death” to the right of your screen, I’m a fucking expert on it. I could write ten books on mourning, loss, grief and death.

So, I’m just asking for one year. Just a reprise for one year, where I don’t have to process the death of someone I know. I am pleading, for my own sanity and peace of mind…let me have one year where it doesn’t happen. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for. And although I don’t like people having a sense of “entitlement”, I think I am ENTITLED to a year of living. Let me lose my mind, let me lose my way but please don’t let me lose another love.

I feel like I’m the woman who never leaves the beach in “Trojan Women”. I don’t know that I have any cloak left to cover another dead body in my life.

I love what Lola wrote on Poietes. (This Lola is different from my Lola. )

I buried my beautiful, dark-haired daughter on a brisk November morning, but I did not bury myself with her, as much as I wanted to, tried to. I persisted and endured, and I am stronger for it, but my weakness will always be the loss of my baby girl. This is the pattern of life itself. This is a part of my tapestry, the one that I am still weaving. Perhaps, in some ways, it is the largest part, and it took an insightful remark to remind me of that. But while Caitlin colors every part of my life, she does not overshadow it. And this, more than anything, is probably the reason that I have survived.

photo credit 1 – photo credit 2 -

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