On Saturday night a good friend of mine witnessed the passing of her mother.

Her mother had cancer, so it wasn't unexpected. But damn, that doesn't make it any easier.

I talked to her on Sunday and she seemed to be doing as well as can be expected. (for the record, it's so funny how such a vague description as someone doing "as well as can be expected" always seems to make sense).

When I was 23 my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. No warning. I was too young to lose him, and he was too young to die of a heart attack.

When I was 25 my aunt died. This was something that we had warning about. It's hard to suddenly have someone ripped from you like my dad was, and it's hard to watch someone wither away too. None are easier and none are harder.

That same year I watched my ex-father in law die. He also withered to the point of death. Fighting for all he could, but ultimately losing that battle that we will all lose eventually.

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So the day after my friend's mom died, I was eating with B and talking to her about the sequence of "where I was" and the whole story of my dad dying. I was just getting to the point in the story where I was about to tell my brother what had happened when I had to stop telling the story.

God, that was a hard night.

It's sometimes hard to imagine how easy it is to go on with a normal routine and not even think about that night. I sometimes go weeks without really sitting down and thinking about my dad. When I do, it's often the good things, although as I get older and gain wisdom he turns less into an idealized father figure and more into an imperfect, but beautiful, man.

It is no cliche to say that I love him more every time I think of him.

But back to the "point". It's interesting the way that emotions can lay so dormant. Me not having a father at the age I am now, having gone through some of the things I have gone through, is not something that effects my daily life at all anymore. But when those emotions do creep, it's impossible to really keep them down.

The hardest thing about death is it's permanence. Every experience from this point out will be without that person. And that's hard, and that sucks.

Yeah, when it comes to the spirit, they are never really gone. I believe that and am comforted by that. But damn it still just sucks. No words can take away how much it sucks.

So death has been on the mind lately. I am not feeling morbid or outwardly sad about it even, but it's just been a shadow on the brain lately.

So I am just trying to let this mood reveal something else about the universe that I didn't know about before, while also just calling it like it is.

Shitty.

I checked on my friend today to see how she is doing. Her response was great, so I will leave this post with the words of my friend. If there is any practical lesson in dealing with the loss of a loved one, it's in these three sentences.

I'm good. Enjoying my baby, my family. Just how she would want.