When you are prepared for a death it is difficult (you're never really prepared....you just think you are), when death is unexpected it is physical, it lodges beneath your breastbone, rests there and pulsates. If this instant grief would simply rest there it would be one thing, but it doesn't, it prefers instead to lash out, particularly when it is fresh, new, raw.
When the news that someone you love, someone you have loved dearly through your life, is gone and those moments of disbelief fade and you know that the voice on the phone spoke the truth, simple tasks become burdens, normal thought becomes erratic and walking from room to room seems like a logical solution.
I did those things tonight. I answered the phone, I didn't believe, I roamed the house. I lost my cousin tonight. I loved him. I grew up with him. I prayed for him during VietNam and with him when he came home. I grieved with him when we lost our parents. I named my son after him.
Tomorrow when I tell people my cousin died they will say they are sorry. They may ask how old he was (59) or was he sick (just diagnosed with lung cancer) or did he live around here (yes), but they won't know, can't possibly know how much I loved him (tons) , how much I will miss him (more than I care to imagine at the moment), what a great guy he was (the best).
I guess what's important is that I know those things about him. I know who he was, what he meant to me. In the end that's all that matters anyway.
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