I'm doing 38 things
my friend G sent me a random message yesterday while i was at work asking if he was going to see me. this confused me, because it sounded like we had plans to see each other, which, had they existed, i would have been completely unaware of. i asked where i would be seeing him to which he said “the funeral.”
immediate response: panic. who died? convinced that for the first time in my life i would have to face the death of someone i knew on a decent level of closeness.
thankfully i did not know A’s mom, but i did know her well enough at least to go with glen to the funeral. i didn’t know how to get to the funeral home. so i met glen and we rode together. you must know this: glen rides a kawasaki ninja 600. i borrowed nicole’s newly acquired motorcycle helmet and glen loaned me a good riding jacket and riding gloves and we were off. i felt slightly underdressed for a funeral, but i had come straight from work and after riding on a bike there’s no much to be done about my disheveled hair.
at the funeral there was this crazy dissonance between the body that was just an empty shell and all the flowers surrounding it that were just exploding with life! it was a crazy contrast, and sitting there crying for someone i didn’t know made it that much more poignant. but it was like i sat in a room and death tried to say “look, i win” and then we went out and hit the streets for some riding, and i experienced flight on wheels, going 110 on the on ramp and 130 across the Howard Frankland Bridge. we left that clash of death and looked it in the eye saying “we live in spite of you. death can’t stop the living. where is your sting?”—it was poetry on a crotch rocket.
count the moments. and make the moments count.
