It Sucks Being Dead at Your 50th Birthday Party
Yesterday I went to Lisa’s 50th birthday party. She’s been dead for less than a year. When she died several unexpectedly months ago, a sinkhole devoured the middle of our town. It seemed like.
How do you fill a sinkhole? You don’t.
When Lisa lost her young son several years before her own death, she kept everything in his room the same. No one blamed or questioned her stop time. Obviously.
No one said move on. Thank God
She spent most of her time outside, walking and talking to everyone. She knew everything about everyone without owning a cell phone. She knew people's phone numbers, addresses, and birthdays without technology. Yes, it’s possible.
We did it, remember?
“Too many bad things happen to that family,” my son said. “Do you think they’re cursed?”
This statement gave me the chills. I had just finished a book about a cursed family. Having just read it, I was more vulnerable to believing in curses.
“Not cursed,” I said to my son. “Bad luck.”
“Bad luck is when you step in a mud puddle and lose a shoe,” my son said, “Not when your child dies and then you die.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong, but I don’t know how to talk to my son about cursed families. I wasn’t qualified.
After Lisa died, her friends collected money to dedicate a bench to Lisa and her dead son. It’s a perfect place to sit and talk to Lisa, but I would rather it were her than a bench.
Her bench was placed beside another boy’s bench, a local teen who died three months after Lisa. It is a beautiful view of the lake with two tragically sad benches.
I walked with my friend, Janis, to Lisa’s 50th birthday which took place near the benches. Janis was close to Lisa, Lisa’s son, and the other boy. Janis said it was good that Lisa and her son’s bench were so close to the other boy’s bench.
“Lisa will watch over those boys,” she said. “She’d want to, and her son will have someone to play…
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