Death and Self-Reflection
I haven't written on this blog in a good long while. It used to be that I enjoyed posting my life on the internet for all to read, but as I get older I am less and less inclined to rant off the cuff for the amusement of others. I have had various experiences in the last few months which made me think of this blog, so I will share some of these.
Death has come up fairly often it seems recently, the first time I suppose with Dr. Gary Thomas dying of cancer at the first of this year. I have shared before my conversations with Dr. Thomas, lets just say I was hoping for a resolution to that conflict which will never come now (at least not from him), and thus I needed to move on and forget his rude treatment of me (which I should have done long ago). Don't get me wrong, I haven't obsessed about this for years; I'm not the character in Groundhog's Day that scratches names off of a long list of revenge targets he has maintained since high school. It's just that the issues surrounding my confrontation with the Chancellor are still popping up every couple of years at the Missouri Miner, so naturally, the personal insults endured resurface as well.
One of my students discovered his mother dead this past year, and I went with a group of teachers to the funeral and watched this very young man forced into a role well beyond his years. Yet, when this student stood up to speak, his maturity and insight into his own situation were impressive to all. Additionally this senior had been recruited into the Marine Corps prior to this tragedy, and it was extremely touching to see three Marine recruiters in dress uniform attend the memorial service. Semper Fi fellas.
Death has entered the lives of my best friend and his wife these past couple of weeks. Both have had to confront the untimely death of a co-worker, and thus both have had to stare their own mortality in the eye and practice some unwelcome self-reflection we are forced into when similar circumstances occur in our lives. Brain aneurysms don't seem as rare when you personally know four or five people who have succumbed to them.
I have been concerned about my own health as well lately. I am 100+ pounds overweight and thus my blood pressure is a little up, and I've developed some breathing difficulties (sleep apnea), which combined with my ever-present allergies, try very hard to make life difficult. I am confident that diet and exercise will fix these problems and am actively working on improving my lifestyle, but skin cancer has also been on my mind recently (probably because it has been in the news recently), and having always been prone to nasty sunburns, I find myself constantly looking at my arms and back for what I fear is the inevitable melanoma. While I have no melanomas to report, you might add anxiety and hypochondria to my list of ailments.
Anyhow, other than that, nothing much is going on for me. Brushes with death and illness force us to reflect upon our own mortality, and such occasional reflection is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if it helps us to improve our well-being. Speaking of which, I will let you know as I drop this unwanted extra weight. The decade of Fat Randal is coming to an end.
Death has come up fairly often it seems recently, the first time I suppose with Dr. Gary Thomas dying of cancer at the first of this year. I have shared before my conversations with Dr. Thomas, lets just say I was hoping for a resolution to that conflict which will never come now (at least not from him), and thus I needed to move on and forget his rude treatment of me (which I should have done long ago). Don't get me wrong, I haven't obsessed about this for years; I'm not the character in Groundhog's Day that scratches names off of a long list of revenge targets he has maintained since high school. It's just that the issues surrounding my confrontation with the Chancellor are still popping up every couple of years at the Missouri Miner, so naturally, the personal insults endured resurface as well.
One of my students discovered his mother dead this past year, and I went with a group of teachers to the funeral and watched this very young man forced into a role well beyond his years. Yet, when this student stood up to speak, his maturity and insight into his own situation were impressive to all. Additionally this senior had been recruited into the Marine Corps prior to this tragedy, and it was extremely touching to see three Marine recruiters in dress uniform attend the memorial service. Semper Fi fellas.
Death has entered the lives of my best friend and his wife these past couple of weeks. Both have had to confront the untimely death of a co-worker, and thus both have had to stare their own mortality in the eye and practice some unwelcome self-reflection we are forced into when similar circumstances occur in our lives. Brain aneurysms don't seem as rare when you personally know four or five people who have succumbed to them.
I have been concerned about my own health as well lately. I am 100+ pounds overweight and thus my blood pressure is a little up, and I've developed some breathing difficulties (sleep apnea), which combined with my ever-present allergies, try very hard to make life difficult. I am confident that diet and exercise will fix these problems and am actively working on improving my lifestyle, but skin cancer has also been on my mind recently (probably because it has been in the news recently), and having always been prone to nasty sunburns, I find myself constantly looking at my arms and back for what I fear is the inevitable melanoma. While I have no melanomas to report, you might add anxiety and hypochondria to my list of ailments.
Anyhow, other than that, nothing much is going on for me. Brushes with death and illness force us to reflect upon our own mortality, and such occasional reflection is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially if it helps us to improve our well-being. Speaking of which, I will let you know as I drop this unwanted extra weight. The decade of Fat Randal is coming to an end.
posted by Randal A. Burd, Jr. at 4:19 PM
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