Needing to do some reevaluation

After losing yet another student yesterday morning (she succumbed to cancer after an almost 14 month long fight), I find it time to do some reflection. It doesn't hurt that it's the end of the year, too.

Here goes. Since September, the following has happened:

1. 9/20 Friend from college was killed when she was hit by a car

2. 10/6 my grandma died.

3. 10/6 I found out that my favorite college professor had passed away from cancer in June.

4. 11/8 My fairly serious car accident that involved me being transported by ambulance and left my car totaled.

5. 11/15 A good friend's 28 year old brother was found dead.

6. 11/16 A friend and colleague collapsed from a seizure in his classroom. Double whammy here--the truama of seeing him and not knowing what was wrong, combined with a nice dose of flashback from when I was a junior in high school and my English teacher died in his classroom. My friend, is, fortunately, just fine.

7. 11/29 A former student, 2009 graduate, committed suicide.

8. 12/20 A former student, 2008 graduate, died of a brain tumor.


I'm beyond sad about all of the above events--the deaths especially, but those "near misses" have also taken a toll on my day-to-day life. I feel alternately blessed and hopeless. Blessed for knowing that each of these deaths is a bright shining light on the amazing life I live...but hopeless because I can't wrap my head around a world where amazing people have to die. And, the unpredictability of it all--sitting down to think that we all could really die at any moment for any cause is consuming my thoughts. But, I can't get too focused on it because then I'm wasting away the time that I have--and that's disrespectful to the people who have died.

Also, I'm climbing very deeply into work activities and also still planning mortuary science, and a career in yoga. I'm starting to feel like I'm reaching the bottom end of a funnel, where I've had all these ideas floating around and swirling toward their conclusion, but when I get there everything is going to be jammed up and bottlenecked and confused. I have to start making longterm decisions.