Morbid thoughts.....

Recently another neighbor as left.  Not sure if she passed away, but it is a safe assumption to think so.  She was an elderly woman, widowed, that suffered a couple strokes over the past 5 years or so.  I never really knew the woman, she lived a solitary life.  DH met her once when he moved in a few years before I was in his life.  After a barrage of truck visits from who I can only assume was her children, there is now a "for sale" sign planted in her yard.  Somehow, this made me think about my other neighbor that passed away last fall.  He, I knew.

Makes me wonder if the days of knowing your neighbors is a passe' thing.  While I do know some of my neighbors, I do not know all of them.  Growing up in my childhood home, we seemed to know every family that lived on our block.  Now, we did not have a lot of social interaction with all the neighbors, but we at least managed to become familiar with them and would offer a smile and a kind "hello" when we saw them outside of their homes.  Nowadays, people prefer to keep to themselves.

Beyond the wondering if knowing your neighbors has become a passe' thing, it also made me wonder when a person passes away and the attendance to their funeral or memorial service.  While we all do have people that we have managed to keep in touch with, people that we lost touch with, and people that we have managed to touch in a way... it boils down to being remembered.  It is not like death can offer an invite to see all those people for one last time to say "goodbye" to them before passing on, or is capable of giving us an advance notice of when our time is up to make sure we said "I love you" one more time to all those people we do happen to love....  death just happens.  Accident or natural causes never prepares us for closure to those we leave behind.  Well, there are some that are informed that they have only so much time left and can actually do as much as they can before going, but that is something not everyone gets.  

While we try our hardest to never part with angry words to those we love, it does happen and it becomes an even more painful thing to overcome for those left behind.  We can only believe that no matter how angry people can get, there is always forgiveness in their hearts.... that they knew that they were loved when they did not feel it at the time.

What has me wonder is, if given the chance to get to know people, that there is a level of respect to appearing to the funeral of a person you once knew or currently know.  While I do not really know that this neighbor passed away, nor did I really get a chance to know her....  did she at least have a decent turnout to pay their final respects?  I knew that when my neighbor that I did know passed, there was actually some neighbors that attended besides myself.  While some of those neighbors ranged in various levels of getting to know that neighbor, some that barely knew him even attended.  I can only guess that they came out of respect.  While everyone cannot attend every funeral or memorial service, it does make me wonder when it becomes my time to pass on if anyone will attend my funeral.

Over the past few days, I have seen a a couple of funerals proceed through town.  I did not know any of those people, but you can see the number of cars in the parking lot of the funeral home or a line of cars at the church with "funeral" tags on them.  One was large and the other was quite small.  Was both people just as important even if the number of people that attended differed so much?  I believe so, but in the eyes of an outsider, it does make a person wonder about the life they did have and how much they shared  it with others.  Was one more popular than the other?  Did one make more of an impact upon the people around them than the other?  What makes it possible to compare if the life of the person that passed was a fruitful one or not?  I do not know.  Also, does everyone that knew that person actually go to these things?  Not necessarily.

While people are forced to embrace the idea that we all will eventually die, we do not look forward to it.  Leaving people behind to deal with the pain of loss is something nobody wants to have happen....  death is not a choice...  it is part of the cycle of life.  While people fear the inevitable... fight it with all their might...  do all they can to leave an impression behind to be remembered....  we all will succumb to the fact that our job is done and move on.  I just wonder if the undying spirit sticks around to see the fruits of their life one last time.  Does the eternal rest of the tangible body actually rest of nobody is there to say their "goodbyes".  Does their soul accept a a non-desired end result for their passing when it comes to who attended?  Have you ever wondered?

I guess why I am wondering is that the community of which these two neighbors shared (one being more social and the other not so much), noticed if any of their neighbors came to pay their last respects.  I went to one, but not the other and it actually made me wonder.