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Day #5 of Death Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I lived in San Jose, California for many years, 1981-1994. I remember somewhere in that time two ‘death’ events happening that made me stop and think about how it can come at any time, doing any thing. One just truly never knows.
The first event was a report in the local paper, The San Jose Mercury News. It told the story of an auto accident. The car, a convertible with the top down, was stopped in the outside lane of a two-lane wide left turn lane. The inside turn lane was a free and large vegetable truck carrying a load of tomatoes came up in that lane as the light turned green. It did not have to slow down for the red light. It was somewhat flimsy looking, with simple high walls of the truck made out of plywood. The truck was going too fast for the turn and as a result the tomatoes shifted in the back of the truck causing the entire truck to tip over and all the tomatoes to spill out. The tomatoes, plywood, crates and everything else made a direct hit on the convertible, killing the passenger. She was just going along with her life, driving who knows where and the next thing she knows she is suffocating under a load of tomatoes.
The second ‘death’ event I remember was the famous Air Florida flight 90 crash into the Potomac River in Washington, D. C. on January 13th, 1982. Reagan was President and he brought one of the heroes of the freezing river rescue to his State of the Union address that year. What hit me about the crash though was that the plane hit one of the bridges over the river, crushing numerous vehicles and killing four drivers and passengers in those cars. They weren’t speeding, they weren’t drunk, they weren’t taking the risk of flying. They were driving home from work. They look up and there is a gazillion ton airplane about to crush them.
It’s a horrible thing to think about. I hate the randomness of those stories. Luckily most of us actually do not die in that sort of freak accident. But all of us do die. And none of us know when we will die. All we can do in the light of that fact is live our life understanding it. That doesn’t mean you have to hug every person you know every day just in case it’s your, or their, last day. What it does mean is you will be happier with your life, long or short, if you live it with love and live it deliberately communicating that love, in word, image and deed. That is all there is to it.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote has been attributed to Gerard Way, 1977-not dead yet, American singer and comic book writer. Lead vocalist of the band ‘My Chemical Romance’. I was not able to verify he is the author.