The Number Three

This has been a hell of a week. Why do we always assume that death comes in three's? When did someone come up with that calculation?

Saturday evening my husband answered the phone at 10pm and was obviously upset by the news he was receiving. I was in a panic wanting him to get off the bloody phone and tell me want was going on because my imagination was going crazy!

It turned out it was bad news a very good girlfriend of mine from college had died. She was the same age as me which certainly brings about a reality check. Judy was 38 and was found in her apartment dead from Menningitus, the worse strain of the virus.

Judy was the one that kicked my husband and myself in the pants near the end of college enough to admit we had feelings more than just friendship. 13 years later and 2 kids and we are still very much in love and having a great life. That Judy was a smart woman, or possibly sick to death of listening to her two friend yakking her ear off about the other person. Either way we got the nudge we needed and Judy was toted as the matchmaker for us.

The day before we got that call I was poking through my wedding pictures and found one of Judy with her boyfriend partying with us. I promised myself to call her after the weekend to catch up and tell her all about our new adventure we were launching with our lives. I got to go to her memorial service instead.

Why don't people cry? I couldn't help crying but I seemed to be the odd person out in doing it. She was only 38 and there were at least a hundred plus people there that she had been a part of their lives. Was it just too fast and shocking that people haven't let the news really sink in or have we just become too desensitized from reality thanks to all that TV and movies we see. We only know how we are supposed to act not how we actually feel and to follow that instead of the proticol that we've seen in some damn movie.

As for the number three... well I learned the day before yesterday my Great Aunt May passed in her 92nd year which is still sad but understandable. The number three death was our pet Rachel who was a very sweet rat.
Do we get to count small rodent pets as a death in our morbid death count? Rachel hasn't had her ceremonial burial or good-bye service yet with the kids. I am going in 5 mins to pick them up from school and have the talk.

Unfortunately we had to send Rachel's body out with the trash this morning but we have a box we created last night which the kids will think holds the body of Rachel. Personally I prefer the truth since we all have stories as children about pets that go off to a farm to live to only find out years later it's completely bogus! Tim wants the fake burial service, I want to hand them a gentle truth. I'm going to see how they first take the news of Rachel's passing before I make the final decision about what I want to say about her body.