Welcome to Gaia! ::

I would not want to donate my organs. Maybe my skin and, but thats it.

Update... I have to update.

My senior class began the fall of 2006 with a roster of sixty. A year ago, almost to the day, that number became fifty-nine. That was when I started this thread.

Now a year has passed. My graduating class is now a living count of fifty-eight.

Yes, another one has died. But I was just as unprepared for the torren of emotions that came with this death than I was for the first one. It was different this time. It was not an accident.

It was suicide.

Two months after graduation, I had just moved from Germany to Upstate New York with my godmother. We were moving into an old Dutch Colonial house (that's at least 130 years old) and making repairs, painting, and swimming to keep cool in those hot afternoons. (You'd be amazed at how hot any place right next to Canada can be!)

I got the call last July, in the middle of the month. I remember that moment so distinctly, like it was yesterday. I can tell you how hot it was. I can show you where I sat, when I found out. I can tell you who gave me the news, and almost exactly how she said it. I can even tell you what time of day it was.

The only thing I do not fully remember is how I dealt with the news. I think I broke down after about ten minutes of shock. I made a couple of calls to my classmates - and found out that I was the last person to find out.

I remember the feeling. I remember how they changed. First shock, and quickly into anger - how could he be so stupid?!

More ghostly communication happened, once I had stopped being angry (anger and passionate emotions tend to cloud the mind from such subtle communication as from the other side - Allison DuBois herself could not even sense her father until a year after his death.) I knew he had to be with his family, but I wanted desperately to just have one, maybe two, signs. Something to show that he did not forget about me, for I had certainly not forgotten him. (Of course, he didn't forget - spirits don't forget.) It wasn't until I stopped asking that he started to come foreward, in ways rather unique and humorous, looking back.

.....

Shortly after this, my remaining grandparent died. It was the easiest death to handle. In fact, it was a somber blessing - dementia had degraded her mind to point that death was, in a way, freeing for her. I felt her more, after that, and I feel her more, now.

Then I realized that it is the deaths of young ones that are hardest to handle. Who says that it's their time to go? you ask. Why? you scream... But with those who... I suppose, are ready, although I hate to put it that way... There is only peace and release.

I suppose the death of a loved one is comparable to a kiss - and not just any kiss, mind you, but a kiss that is a revelation of souls. I guess I mean.. love.

Death is powerful, and peace-bringing, and pain-bringing all at the same time. So is love. Death creates connections that can last forever. So can love. Think about it...