Contemplating Mortality

.
We learned this morning of the too-swift passing of comic George Carlin, soon after the abrupt death of Tim Russert. Unexpected, both, though likely predictable, given their health histories.

Deaths happen abruptly every day. And all you who stop by here from time to time readily recognize those names. If not, go google...

Because right now, I'm contemplating mortality in a much more personal way. Friday evening I got one of "those" calls...a dear cousin, now half a continent away, had died from a massive stroke.

We're too young, we baby boomers think. Such does not happen to us. And yet it does...

Before she was a mom and a wife and a grandmom and a watercolorist and all the other things that formed her adult years, Mary Jo was Aunt Irene's little girl, the only girl with four brothers, Sandy's year-younger cousin—our birthdays only hours apart from being the same date. We shared growing-up years in the way cousins do, family gatherings and holidays, but also walking together to the old Fairgrounds, and sitting on her mom's bed to giggle over who was the cuter Beatle, Paul or George. I still say George.

At 59, she was far too young to go.

There are a lot of families who think those thoughts. The statistical 850 a day who die abruptly from heart attacks. The victims of car accidents or urban violence or the violence we have allowed to be inflicted in Iraq based on lies. The flag-draped coffins coming home under cover of darkness—too young to go.

Some say be patient, just wait, there's change coming, as Frank Rich posited about the future, whoever gets elected, this morning on the Imus Show. But there is also the fierce urgency of now.

There are things that can be done now. There are things that must be done in the future. FISA's immunity for telcos must be stopped now. Democracy where people are valued for more than the money in their wallets must be renewed, and I'm one that doesn't think that can happen without truth and full accounting and accountability for these years.

Our legacy, Mary Jo's and mine, was grandparents who immigrated from Germany long enough ago that we qualify as a Dakota Territory pioneer family, my dad fought in WW II as a Marine. The legacy I crave for my grandson, for her grandchildren, is one of honor and wisdom and the restoration of the promise that drew our ancestors to this land.

Mary Jo Yales...cherished and missed by those who knew and love her still. JoY at her heart, and so I will remember her.
.