Someone always dies right before graduation.
Funny (or I guess not really funny at all) story- my best friend Carl calls me from Santa Barbara telling my Amanda-Cameron (one of my closest friends.. hyphenated with her husband) ODed on something on Monday and is in a coma with low neural activity in Glendale memorial hospital.
Of course I'm completely distraught. Amanda and I have been very close ever since school started. She was my roommate freshmen year and one of the few people I still keep in touch with regularly. I'm like, 'what should I do?! Should I call Cameron? Is that okay?" I don't really know what to do.
So I call Cameron-Amanda's phone and woman's voice picks up.
"Hello?"
a pause. ".. is this Amanda?"
"yup, what's wrong"
"You're not in a coma?"
"... I am not in a coma."
At this point I'm very confused and starting to be very relieved. Amanda assures me she's not in a coma and I totally, really, believe her.
Which still leaves the question of, if Amanda is not in a coma, then who the fuck IS in a coma? I call Carl back and he clarifies that by "Amanda-Cameron" he meant "Amanda Camerling", a girl we all went to art school with, and certainly not the same Amanda. Very sad about it, but not AS sad, which makes me feel guilty.
I don't really know the girl.. we had a lot of mutual friends and I thought she was kind of mean. We'd had one conversation and it was an argument in a painting class that led me to drop the class. I was sad she was in a coma, but not as sad. I think that's fair.
She died yesterday, according to Carl. The e-mail that the art school sent out said that she died from brain damage in a car crash, which may or may not be true.
It's wierd, because I don't mourn death very much (yet).. I'm more of a celebrate life kind of person, so when I said 'but wow she led a crazy life and died young and beautiful' people look at me like I eat babies.
Anyway, point being, sad about Amanda Camerling, happy I don't pop pills, nervous about graduation, excited about life, still (perhaps naively) unafraid of death.
Funny (or I guess not really funny at all) story- my best friend Carl calls me from Santa Barbara telling my Amanda-Cameron (one of my closest friends.. hyphenated with her husband) ODed on something on Monday and is in a coma with low neural activity in Glendale memorial hospital.
Of course I'm completely distraught. Amanda and I have been very close ever since school started. She was my roommate freshmen year and one of the few people I still keep in touch with regularly. I'm like, 'what should I do?! Should I call Cameron? Is that okay?" I don't really know what to do.
So I call Cameron-Amanda's phone and woman's voice picks up.
"Hello?"
a pause. ".. is this Amanda?"
"yup, what's wrong"
"You're not in a coma?"
"... I am not in a coma."
At this point I'm very confused and starting to be very relieved. Amanda assures me she's not in a coma and I totally, really, believe her.
Which still leaves the question of, if Amanda is not in a coma, then who the fuck IS in a coma? I call Carl back and he clarifies that by "Amanda-Cameron" he meant "Amanda Camerling", a girl we all went to art school with, and certainly not the same Amanda. Very sad about it, but not AS sad, which makes me feel guilty.
I don't really know the girl.. we had a lot of mutual friends and I thought she was kind of mean. We'd had one conversation and it was an argument in a painting class that led me to drop the class. I was sad she was in a coma, but not as sad. I think that's fair.
She died yesterday, according to Carl. The e-mail that the art school sent out said that she died from brain damage in a car crash, which may or may not be true.
It's wierd, because I don't mourn death very much (yet).. I'm more of a celebrate life kind of person, so when I said 'but wow she led a crazy life and died young and beautiful' people look at me like I eat babies.
Anyway, point being, sad about Amanda Camerling, happy I don't pop pills, nervous about graduation, excited about life, still (perhaps naively) unafraid of death.
I too am more of a celebrate life kind of person...as much as people try to deny it, death is inevitable and as natural as birth...just another threshold to cross. Though it can be a bit sticky and messy and painful at times...just like birth...hmmm.
A couple of my favorite death related quotes:
"I am not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." -Woody Allen
"When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." -Tecumseh
hope your graduatation went well