During my time up there I ventured over to look at the alleys below and I spied the neighbor kid looking like he was sneaking out of the backyard. Him and his friend left the yard and started running down the alley towards the front of the house. He's probably about five years old, perhaps six...I don't really know as I guess I just don't quite know how old kids are these days. It's been so long since I was that age that I just lump all kids into one giant kid age group. No idea how old they are. He could be ten for all I know. Anyway, it should have been a cute moment watching a child gingerly open the gate and then start running down the alleyway, but all I thought of in that moment was that I wish he was running away from home. That's if you can call it a home where he lives. It's hardly that. More of a dwelling or just a house or perhaps a shelter? His Mom (and I use that term very loosely) would be in the running for Mom of the Year if Mom of the Year criteria consisted of yelling and swearing at her kids. I don't know what goes on inside that house, but I've heard enough from what has gone on outside it to know that that kid is going to have a lot to overcome. If she's not screaming at her kids, she's screaming at her husband/boyfriend/whatever he is. It's just a lot of hate happening inside that house. I've never seen her hit her kids, assuming they are hers in the first place, but the mental pain she's unleashed is probably just as bad, if not worse.
He's just a kid and he has to deal with all of this crap already. The crap is supposed to come later on in life, not so soon. I had an odd childhood as my parents divorced when I was just out of kindergarten, but I didn't have to deal with that kind of daily abuse. Perhaps it's not daily, but I doubt it. The winter deafened (to my ears) most of the outpouring of disgust from her mouth, but the summer is bringing it out again. Seems as if it's always stormy inside that house. It's too bad she wasn't infertile.
And on the opposite end of the pain spectrum, I received a text on my way home from work today that my cousin Vicky is in hospice and perhaps has four weeks left in her life. I don't believe she's even made it to the age of 60 yet. Some sort of cancer will take another life too soon. I'm not all that close with her or her siblings as we've all sort of lost touch for some reason or another, but it's still sobering to realize a relative is about to die. She has requested no calls or visitors as she fades into another existence.
I don't even know that much about her. I do know she had a love for music...Jethro Tull and Fleetwood Mac come to mind when I think of her, as I know she went to some of those concerts over the years. I suppose it's also sad that I don't really know much more than that. A life is about to end and I hardly know anything about that life. It's too easy to lose touch. It's too easy to not care. It's too easy to not bother. It's too easy to take life for granted.
I don't know what it feels like to know you're going to die, but I can't imagine it's a good feeling. Perhaps if all of your life has been spent suffering and feeling pain, the end would be something to look forward to, but...there is no but...it probably is a relief to die. I'm just not sure how it feels when that isn't the case and you've lived a good life, but it's all coming to a close faster than you probably expected or wanted.
We don't really have that much time here in our lives. Sometimes it feels like it's forever and sometimes our pains feel like they will never end and sometimes it all feels completely hopeless and worthless, but it's not. We're all here for some reason, whether we ever figure that reason out for ourselves or not. Every life teaches a lesson to someone, somewhere, and it's our responsibility to absorb the lessons and learn from them. These lessons aren't always easy to absorb. We're not always as absorbent as those Charmin Bears in soaking up the excrement of life. We just have to keep trying I guess. Death and the pain others are experiencing can provide some perspective on our own suffering, or what we think of as suffering, but it doesn't make our pain go away. It just sheds a little more light on the delicate nature of life. Perhaps we learn from that, perhaps we don't.
Hopefully that neighbor child has a good supply of toilet paper to get him through the shitstorm he has to endure every single day of his life. And I guess I'll see be attending a funeral in the not too distant future, so I can celebrate a life and connect with those still living relatives I pretty much only see at funerals.
Hopefully I've learned another lesson.
Sad blog indeed.
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