Friday, December 17, 2010

The downer of deaths

Earlier this week, my father informed me someone had passed away. Nick Figaro, a 35-year-old Greek Orthodox man, died of heart complications that he was unaware he had in his bed, in his parents' house.

I know of him because a GBN physical education and health teacher, Beth, married him at my church and my father performed the wedding. I never had Beth (called Ms. O before she was married/to most of my class at GBN) as a teacher, but we became very friendly with each other after she got to know my dad through her pre-marriage classes and Chrismation. When I was home in October, I even met their daughter Sloan, who is a little shy of one year old, and Nick's mom at the Homecoming parade.

Hence, when I received this call, I still got the chills that such things happen. Imagine being the parents of a 35-year-old and hearing your son died. Imagine marrying the love of your life, envisioning a future, and that person dying just two years later. Imagine thinking of how to raise a child of one year who will now live without her father living and raising her. It makes me cry to even think about it.

I attended the wake with my family, and came across a lot of my former GBN teachers. I saw the entire GBN physical education department and a lot of district administrators who I haven't seen in awhile. But the awkward thing about visitations and wakes is that you don't go greet these people as you would in a normal setting. You might exchange a glance of sadness, but there is no chatting or catching up. That is put aside out of respect for the person who passed away. It doesn't matter how school is going, someone's class is or how things are with their family, what matters is that both of you are paying respects to the family of someone who just died.

And that is how life goes. You live, watch all of your neighbors, family, friends, old acquaintances and classmates do the same, and then they die. Some early, some late, some past the time you are living. And you have to live knowing that you don't know the last time you will ever see some of these people. Or one of the only places you'll run into those people you never see and never expected to see is at such depressing events. I didn't quite realize this until I was there that day. I have to sadly think that the next time I will see some of those teachers is at another funeral. But I can fulfill my thoughts knowing that I am on good enough terms with them to exchange a glance and empathize with what they are thinking, without even needing to speak to express our feelings.

What can be deduced from this is that you have to live every day to its fullest and maintain positive relationships with the people you know and love, so this is always the case where and whenever you see them. It could be at Walgreens or at a store, at a restaurant, walking by them in a mall or at a park, in a classroom, or at their funeral. You never know when that last day will come. So always say hi, always be pleasant, don't hesitate to be nice....because you don't know what the future will bring.

People will die, unfortunate things will happen, and life has to move on. Beth will have to be a single mother, the daughter will have to grow up without her father and the family will always miss their beloved brother and son. But all we can do is remember that the last time I saw Beth before this tragedy, we had a great conversation and were happy to see each other and talk. So when I saw her at the wake, a hug of comfort was exchanged. And that feeling of comfort is what will mean the world to someone someday.

I have experienced at this at many funerals and wakes in the past couple of years, as well as Nick's this past week. Some would say that my high school and middle school graduating class was not the lucky one. In middle school, Marco DeVito and Tommy Whang passed away; at GBN- Jenny Snyder passed away; just a few months ago, Lizzy Seeberg committed suicide after being sexually assaulted by a Notre Dame football player, and her parents cannot even charge that player with anything due to insufficient evidence that will prove something.

So remember to be positive and don't be afraid to demonstrate your care for others, because you don't know what will come next.

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