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Grumpy Old Hippie Pt 3
This has been a hard month — or life — or moment, depending on which of the many thoughts flashing across this brain I pause to contemplate in the space between any out breath and the next. I keep pausing on death. Death is making me very grumpy and tired. I am getting very tired of the constant reminders of impermanence.
The world news is bad enough. Sri Lanka last Sunday. Pick any local news outlet and the murders and car crashes last night. A beautiful woman, 62, who had been my close friend and lover for a time 20 years ago died of ALS six weeks ago. In four months it will be a year since my writing mentor passed. My 26 year old nephew three weeks ago. My 94 year old uncle yesterday. Deep breath in breathe out. I just did six more before starting to type again. Death is never far and yet each time it is another shock to the system. Each time I want to know all the answers. What happened? Who was there? What else could have been done? And as I get older, why them and not me? Karma?
I hear all the platitudes. God will take you when he needs you with him. They are with their loved ones who have gone before them now. God saved them from a worse fate. Thank you God. I am a Buddhist. I have been informally since the ’70s. Formal vows in the late ’90s. A lot of practice and study. I do all the Buddhist practices for everyone in my circle and well beyond each time I hear of another…
