Thursday March 28th, 2024 7:57PM

Coming to grips with death

I suppose it’s one of the pitfalls of getting older, but I’ve been to more than my share of funerals in 2015.

Death is a part of life, to be sure. I’m just not ready to start burying parents of friends – or friends themselves.

There have always been funerals. When I was young, I had grandparents and other older relatives die. Other times, the funerals were for older people in the community that I often didn’t know directly.

But a few years ago, I buried my father. This year alone, I’ve been to funerals for my best friend’s brother, the father of a childhood friend and the mother of another.

The last 10 days or so have been particularly painful in my small hometown of Blakely, in southwest Georgia. It started with the death of a small boy in a tragic accident and was followed by the deaths of several women in town, including two who were the mothers of friends and classmates.

One of them, Margaret Griffin, was like a second mother to me.

It won’t make sense to people who didn’t grow up in a small, rural community. I’ve often made comments comparing Blakely to Mayberry, and there are more than a few similarities. Everybody in a small town knows everyone else. And everybody looks after everybody else.

That’s true even today, even as the rest of society seems to be more self-involved than ever, even as those of us who live in cities don’t know our neighbors.

The neighborhood where I grew up was a special place. I didn’t realize it at the time. But as I’ve gotten older, I realize that not many other people had childhoods like mine.

There were some 20 children in our neighborhood. We played together, riding our bicycles in the streets or building forts in the woods. We were good kids. No drugs or any of the other problems of modern society.

When we did misbehave, anybody’s mother or father could punish us. As a result, there are maybe a dozen or so women and men who can claim a role in helping raise me. That’s just the way it was in a small town. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is where the line between family and friends get blurred. It’s easy to discern your blood relatives. But there becomes a time when friends are more than just friends. They become your brothers and sisters, people you’d do anything for and who’d do anything for you.

Margaret Griffin came into my life in college, mostly because of her husband. His name was Glenn, but everyone, including me, called him Doc.

Doc was an important person in my life after my parents divorced. I spent hours with him, listening to hilarious stories from his life and getting insightful advice that still guides me today. I came to love Margaret, too, and it wasn’t long before I was treated like I was one of her family.

Like I said, it wasn’t unusual for that to happen. But I’ll be forever grateful that it did.

Margaret died last week after a valiant fight against cancer and heart problems. I was fortunate to see her a few months ago on a visit to my mother’s house. Margaret suffered at the end, and everyone believes she’s in a better place today.

But, dammit, I wasn’t ready to lose her. Yes, death is a part of life.

That’s doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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