The paradox of Grief

If you live long enough you are sure to experience the paradox of grief. On the one hand you are sorry for yourself to see your friends and family pass on out of this world. However, on the other hand you are very grateful that their suffering is over in regard to life on earth. At best life when you live a very long time is what I would call an adventure ordeal. In other words sometimes the best thing about it is all the great stories that almost killed you around the world. You are proud to have survived it all. It sort of at times is like a roller coaster ride that never ends. I have been married three times now and when I met my present third wife she was 39 and had never married nor had any children of her own. She had lived with men in her life but there was never a long term (more than 5 year) commitment. So, since I knew we would be raising children together I took her to Marriot's Great America in San Jose and took her on Top Gun. I said if she wouldn't ride on that ride at age 39 I wouldn't marry her. I said that "Marriage is a roller coaster, especially if you are raising children, and if you can't handle Top Gun in which you are saddled on a bicycle seat with a chest strap and then thrown upside down at about 30 to 60 miles per hour then you won't be able to handle raising kids and staying married." So, she screamed the whole way through this ride in order for me to take her seriously in regard to getting married and raising kids.

We had a daughter in the 1990s and I had another daughter from my 2nd marriage born 1989 and a son from my first marriage born 1974 and two step kids from my second marriage born 1971 and 1973. Then she had one God-Daughter that also sort of became my God-daughter as well and in another family a God-Son and a God-Daughter and then another God-daughter came our way at age 18 when her mother became seriously ill and we helped her through college. So, the roller coaster type of ride is ongoing when you are married raising kids of any age. Unless you are adaptive "Adapt or die!" it just won't work raising kids. My cousin has three grown kids in their early to late 30s. His statement in regard to daughters was, "Well. All you can do is make sure they don't kill themselves or do anything that will destroy their minds or bodies and head them in the direction of college. That's about all you can do as a father these days." His daughters both became successful in their own rights. One is a successful lawyer at the top of her field and the other is a teacher and a playright who has many of her plays performed. One has two kids and one has 3, and both are still married to their first husbands. So, I think he knows what he is talking about.

The grief I'm presently dealing with is that my best friend in life from age 12 to 20 when he went off to Viet Nam in the Air Force as a Jet Engine mechanic eventually to Thailand and worked on fighter planes bombing and rocketing Viet Nam is dying of Alzheimers presently. I'm 62 and he is 63. He is in a coma presently. Even before that all he could say was "yes", "no" and "I love you". But most men in these kinds of situations don't last long. We just aren't built for it. My mother lasted about 9 years but that was exceptional. It looks like he is in and out of a coma already and people don't usually last after that. I told my wife this is hitting me harder than I expected. She said, "How much time did you spend with your friend?" I said, "Well. I spent as much time with my friend as I did my Dad during my teens when I was learning the Electrical trade with my Dad. And I saw my friend, Mike, every day during school at lunch and we built cars engines together sometimes on weekends. He also drove me in his 51 Ford convertable on my first Date at my age 15 to the Alex Theater in Glendale, California to See Muscle Beach Party with Annette Funicelo and Frankie Avalon in March 1964 when I was still just 15.
We flew gliders at El Mirage in the Desert the Same day and drove dune buggies around Palm Springs and drove my Dad's 1964 VW Westfalia Camper Van up to Mammoth Hot Springs in the winter and got in the natural free hot springs then in the middle of the night there and since it was about 15 to 20 degrees then we got out and started to freeze to death so we had to get back in until morning. We were so cold we finally drove home to Los Angeles County without skiing because we were just so cold. Funny, sad, happy stories of silly youthful things kids do and hopefully survive and learn from. We took the Great White Steamship to Catalina and then rented a speed boat with the guys we met on the steamship and drove the boat up to Emerald cove on Catalina which was the best diving spot on the eastern side of the island back then and went SCUBA diving. Great memories!

But now my friend doesn't really know who I am anymore and is in a coma dying and I'm finding this as hard as losing my father to  prostate cancer in 1985 when I was only 37.