coming and going

I've just found out that a co-worker's father has passed away, a co-worker not very much older than myself - and it just makes me pause and think (as it should i guess).

Part of my job here at work is to read the obituaries daily to see if any of our donors have passed away and if so, if we need to follow-up with condolences and flowers and i have to say, this gets to me after awhile. somedays, the entries make me cry (which is a wee embarrassing here at work). other days i zip through them without a second thought to the sadness that others must be suffering.

i read an article this week about the "over-medicalization" of society - basically commenting on how quick we are to diagnose ANYTHING and get medicine to treat it and though i have many opinions for and against about the validity of modern medicine, what the article did make me wish for was a place with more interaction with life and death, so it wasnt so scary or so sad. It seems like on both ends of the spectrum, also for a variety of reasons, births and deaths have been removed from the daily function of our lives, and, at least for me, they've become scary in their mystique.

I suppose hearing about my co-workers loss, reading the obits daily, and just watching my own family's methods of dealing with aging has made these observations of mine the way they are, but it really is amazing how quickly life comes and goes from us.