Some Notes On "The Job", Newtown and Family....

Writing pet peeve #1: Losing perfectly good ideas while my brain wastes away at work. Where in the world do all my ideas go?? All my strange musings and questions about this crazy ass world around me seem to disappear like someone erased the chalkboard in my brain. Maybe I should get with the times and invest in a thumb drive for my brain or something. That way nothing gets lost. Aww hell, who am I kidding? I would probably lose the thumb drive. 

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for the past few days and it’s amazing how the nature of it has changed the longer I’ve been thinking about it. The tragic events that occurred over the weekend planted the seed in my head, and my own nearly life-shattering incidents with a few of my family members caused it to grow. I feel it is only fitting since I’ve decided to examine life and death in “The Job” to let loose how these happenings have affected me. Writing has always been a coping mechanism for me, so I hope that by getting some of this off my chest, sleep will come easier than it has the past few nights.

(Disclaimer: I feel the need to emphasize that this post is strictly going to be about my own philosophy in regard to life and death. There will be no mention of gun violence/gun control or how mental illness may have contributed to the unspeakable events that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School. There is a time and place for those discussions to happen. This blog is strictly for my own self examination and this is how I choose to deal with this specific situation.)  

When I first started writing “The Job”, my initial goal with it was to maybe help people re-examine how they view death. In it our main character, obsessed with his own demise, is not only faced with it but also accompanies Death while it merely does what it is there to do: it’s job. In Part 3 (which I’ve yet to put up), we get to witness what happens when someone IS ready for death and how the spirit himself copes with it, trying to get our main character to understand what passing from this life to the next truly entails. Hell, we even find out where ghosts come from. However, when the subject matter hits so close to home and in such a violent manner, it’s made even me step back and re-examine my thoughts on Death. I guess that happens when you think you finally have everything figured out. 

Beginning with hearing the news of the tragedy in Newtown, CT, it seemed like Death was knocking everywhere I turned. Just as I had begun to process what happened there, I got a call (a text to be more specific) informing me that my aunt had taken a turn for the worse. Although I had been expecting a call like that for some time now, it still didn’t make it any easier to hear. Just over 12 hours later, I got another call concerning my beloved grandfather who was also admitted to the hospital after a bad fall. Armed with only the knowledge that he had fallen and was being admitted to the ICU, I broke down. When was the bad news going to stop? It got to the point where I was literally shaking in fear the next time the phone rang. It seemed as though everything was coming apart at the seams.

As I type this, however, both my grandfather and aunt are still with us. As much as I am thankful to the Fates for choosing to give my relatives more time on this Earth, I can’t help but wonder why. Seemingly their lives were spared whereas 26 people, including 20 children, all had their lives stolen from them in the blink of an eye.  I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason but this has me baffled.

Were these innocent little lives taken to spare them from having to relive the horror of what they experienced that day? Were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? And why did it have to happen during what is supposed to be one of the most joyous times of the year? Sometimes I wonder why my brain even goes to these bizarre places in regards to a tragedy such as this when there seems to be bigger issues at hand.

In my story, Death acts as a comforter and a healer of sorts. Death is there to come to the aide of those who are ailing, or in pain, or even those coming to the end of a truly long life and are ready to rest. It does not come as a harbinger of grief and sorrow to those who truly need it. I guess to be perfectly blunt about it you could call Death the Jack Kevorkian of the spirit world. That is how I began to view death in my adult life. I would certainly like to hold on that ideal, but it is getting more and more difficult everyday. 


I can only seem to come up with one somewhat rational idea as to why these things have transpired the way they did. I think we forget from time to time just how precious life is. We get so caught up in our fast-paced, day-to-day lives that we need reminding just how quickly things can change. Maybe this is fates way of telling us all to slow down. Enjoy this precious time that we have been given with out loved ones. Make each minute with them count. As much as it seems unfair that my grandfather and aunt will be with us longer and these poor children lost their lives, my family and I have been given more time with them. I will cherish what short time we all have left together because I don't know when they will be gone. 

I think all this yelling and going back and forth about gun control/accessibility and arguing about how to deal with the mentally ill is all for naught. Instead of yelling at the lefty liberal who wants to take away everyone's guns or that right-wing conservative that wants to arm everyone with assault rifle's, why not channel that energy into something positive? What's important right now are our children, our mothers and fathers, our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and our nieces and nephews. Choose love instead of hate. Cherish life now.

I hope that one day a tragedy such as this doesn't have to occur to snap us back to reality about our own mortality. I also hope that one day we have the real reason why these things happen and stop fighting each other over them.