It’s now been ten years since I graduated from college. That means it’s been ten years since Mike Marlin’s death.
It’s strange the things that stick with us, and take on importance in our lives.
We went to the same high school; he graduated a year behind me. But in a high school with less than 100 people, class rank wasn’t really that significant. We both ran track, and that may have been the only thing we had in common. In college we had a few friends in common, and we hung out in the same places, but for the most part his friends didn’t seem to care much for me, so I spoke to him only rarely. But then I do have a tendency to avoid talking to people—fear of rejection I suppose—that perhaps leads people to avoid me.
I have regrets. I wonder whether I should have talked to him more, whether my avoidance of people is something I should change—whether I should reach out to people more, and to hell with the fear of rejection. I regret never thanking him for carrying me to the bus after I passed out at my last track meet. That and the fact that he was one of the people who was never cruel to me in high school. Sounds stupid when I put it that way, but that’s how it was. It was only when I went to Catholic school that I learned what cruelty really was. You take small acts of kindness where you can find them.
My absolute hatred of the Dominion Post stems from this time. Their front page picture of his body after it had been drug from the river was a punch in the stomach. I’ll never understand why people feel the need to publish pictures of such things. What good does it serve? There was a recent debate over the publishing of the photos of the mutilated bodies of the contract workers. Some claimed that people needed to see the photos to understand the true horror of it. I don’t get it. What is wrong with people that they can’t be outraged over the treatment of humans, unless it’s in full, living color? We can’t feel the horror unless we see it? That can’t possibly be right, although sometimes I do wonder.
But it’s been ten years now. And I still think about it, and I wonder how much has remained with others. How frequently do his friends think of him? Does his family wonder what his life would have been like?
I’d been thinking for the past several months about this upcoming anniversary. It’s odd I’ve thought more about his death, than the changes in my own life over the past ten years. I’ve also been thinking about death in general. It’s strange how death and illness seem to come in waves. I won’t go to a funeral for years, then suddenly I’m surrounded by grief.
I was recently thinking about my grandfather’s funeral. There has, for obvious reasons, been a lot of discussion of military funerals in recent months. Of whether it is respectful to show caskets coming back. Personally, I don’t see how honoring those who died in service to our country could be disrespectful, but then there is a lot I don’t understand.
My grandfather’s funeral was a hard thing. Not because we were close, but because we weren’t. He’d gone down to the local convenience store, like he did every day, to buy lottery tickets. He had a heart attack, and died right there. Someone stole his wallet—took it from his body. Of everything, that was probably the hardest thing for me to comprehend.
My cousin was in Jr. ROTC then. Still in high school, in his dress uniform, and trying so very hard not to cry. He was probably closer to my grandfather than anyone. It was painful to see such grief. Hard to see someone hurting so much. Hard because I felt like I should be hurting that much, yet I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I was sad, but it wasn’t the same. During the memorial service my uncle described how my grandfather would play with his grandkids, but to me it was as if he was describing a stranger. My grief was for the relationship I never had, more than the relationship I did have.
So I’ve been thinking about this, and the death of my grandfather, and the death of Mike Marlin. There are so many ways to die, and so many different types of grief. Sometimes I feel as if that is what growing old is—absorbing all that grief, and making it part of you.
Sometimes I feel as if part of me has been old for as long as I can remember.
