This is a sad day.
I found out that an old friend of mine from the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism–Medieval Re-enactment group) died yesterday. The person who told me had just lost her husband a couple of months ago, and now it was her sister. Another friend just lost her 92 year old father a week ago.
Why these deaths hit me right now–Jon and Nora were both on dialysis. Nora couldn’t walk anymore and lived in Florida. Judy’s dad scares me because my father is getting up there. He’ll be 81 this year.
I’m not worried about their afterlife. It might be selfish of me, but I will miss them because I no longer can get to talk to them. That is what makes me sad. The Death card in tarot means a major change, a rebirth, That is what I believe. You go to the afterlife you expect. And then you come back. Maybe not here on Earth, maybe somewhere else in the galaxy or another time.
Pluto is also a planet of death. I keep trying to figure out if my husband’s chart shows his death day. You usually can’t predict death in an astrology chart. For example, my chart these last few years has Pluto in the first house, which, in some books, show hard times and come this short of saying death is predicted. At 102 years it may return to its position at my birth. I’ll be gone, physically or mentally, by then.
I think on my own mortality more often than not, at least since I’ve been on dialysis. Now that I’m no longer a candidate for a transplant, I’m stuck with going to dialysis three times a week for four hours at a time. Seven if you want to include the travel time when they bring me an hour early and I leave two or more hours after I come off the machine.
Their deaths mean to me that they live in my memories and dreams. I think of Jon whenever I want to be the curmudgeon, Nora when I see my SCA garb, and Dad–well I hope that he doesn’t go anywhere except back up here because if something happens to him in Florida, I don’t know what I’ll do. And my death? I can’t. I just can’t. I have too much work to do, people depend on me.