You Can't Heal Death

So, I mentioned in my last blog entry, that I am currently reading Dickens's David Copperfield. I'm into it. Check out this crazy thing that just happened: Young Davy is away at boarding school, and they call him in to speak with the head of the school and his wife. It's his birthday, so Davy expects a gift from Miss Peggotty, his friend/maid. Instead, the wife of the head of school says, "David, I'm afraid your mother is very ill." And Davy is like, "Wha?" "She's extremely, terribly ill, my boy," she adds. And Davy responds, "Oh no." And then she says, "Your mother is dead."

What kind of a way is that to break the news to the poor kid? I thought it was pretty hilarious. You have to be really, really ill to be dead. Actually, that's about as ill as you can possibly be. "Hey, Fred, how's your dad? I heard he's sick." "Oh, yeah, Tim, he's horribly ill, still. He can't even move." "Really? Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that, Fred." "Yeah, it's pretty bad. He's dead." "Ooh. No bouncing back from that sickness, eh?"

My father's German Shepherd recently passed away. He told me about it yesterday, over the phone. He said, "Adrian passed away last week." I felt for him. I am glad he didn't say, "Adrian is horrifically ill...she's dead," because then I just would have felt confused.

Some 4th grader was having a devastating asthma attack today, and I was asked to go into the bathroom with him, because he felt sick, but I didn't know what to do to help him, so I just watched him gasp and puke into a garbage can. When I asked him if he could breathe, he shook his head "no," and I was like, "Aw man," and then I just continued to watch him gag and wheeze. I am certified to perform CPR, but that only helps after the victim has collapsed and turned purple. It may have seemed like I wasn't helping, but rest assured, if that kid had flatlined, I would have been on top of him in two seconds, cracking his ribs with my two-handed chest pump, keeping that precious blood flowing to the brain.

His puke was surprisingly unscented.

He's dead, now.

(not really)