No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
John Donne
John Donne
I wrote about my dad a while back. He was in the hospital in Denver, suffering from frostbite and I imagine also suffering from fifty years of ups and downs. Of trying to get a leg up and then falling back down. He loved people, he hurt people, he chose to do things to hurt himself. He tried to reconnect.
Last Thursday, he died. I got a call from a coroner's office in Colorado. He had an ID on him and that led them to his medical records, where my name and phone number were listed from the call a couple of Christmases ago. So the coroner called me. And he's gone.
It's such a strange thing to try to process. I can't really miss him, as I didn't really know him. My sadness comes from wishing that things could have been different. Wishing that drug addictions didn't creep in and fester and hollow out so many people. I'm sad for greater social issues, like how we treat the homeless in our culture, and how we (fail to) help with drug addictions on a systems level. I'm sad for how alone he was. For a quiet death. No funeral. No bells. I hope that there is peace for him, and for everyone who knew him.