These days ...
I feel like everyone I know is either...
Getting married ...
Or Dying.

I really hope that doesn't offend anyone.

I don't even really think I have any way to expound on these. It just seems like every week, someone announces an engagement. This is fine with me, I am overjoyed by this news almost every single time. Half of the time all I can think is "finally, its about time!" So this is a good thing, it just seems like it is everyone, all the time. Everything is shifting, a million little changes that don't effect me, but change the world around me, the one I interact in. Lives I invest in, changing without me.

And people die.

They always have. I even knew some of them. But now it seems like I know all of them. At least once every six months. That is way too often. And they're getting closer too. I have had 4 friends, even family from my high school graduating class lose their fathers from during high school to now. Yesterday my high school art teacher passed away. He was so healthy and full of life when I had him just a handful of years ago. I heard he had cancer awhile back but then I just fell out of the loop. Suddenly I find out that he is cancer free, but his body is so broken that its simply failing. And that is a morose picture of life in general. Fighting our hardest and even triumph leave a man broken practically beyond repair. It reminds me of Tolkien's writings. He built a world where even when good triumphs, there is an almost destroying cost. Frodo can't stay any longer.

I guess that's where I am. When someone dies, it changes everything. We're not naive enough to say that things were ever perfect before this, but at least there was an order. Now things we don't even realize and things we never thought would change because of this, change. Every relationship that interacted with or brushed closely to one of theirs is altered. How do I interact with so-and-so now? Some begin to move in an entirely different direction with their life, old friends completely irrelevant to the situation are slowly discarded for new directions. The family deck is shuffled, and no one comes out with anything that seems worthy of playing.

Will things ever just settle into place? It seems no matter the amount of time or the changing to accommodate the circumstances by surviving parties, everything remains unsettled. Like a snow globe that never goes still. Something is still not at rest long long after any novelty has worn away.

It was strange this most recent time. I really loved that professor. I haven't remained close to him or anything, we didn't have a closer bond than he did with other students, but he was just an authentic guy.

Authentic artist. One memory that surprised me because of how sad it was for me was thinking of a time when I watched him simply sketch. I was amazed by his skill, just thinking about how incredibly all those years had paid off. And to see the joy of a man who I knew most as a teacher, enjoying what he fought so hard to instill in me.

Authentic teacher. He wasn't anything other than what a teacher should be. A mature leader who was personally experienced in what he was teaching and invested in each student's success.

Authentic Christian. He wasn't some theologian or pastor. But he lived it. Sometimes I am so greatly more impressed by those who have their priorities first on Christ when He has nothing to do with their paycheck and would not naturally find His way into their daily interactions.

Its interesting, to feel this way. See, they never fade really. The deaths just pile up. I guess I've reached that point of adulthood where my memories will last, unlike thinking back to the fuzzy freshman or sophomore years of high school. Every time someone dies, its just added to the others. And they all feel fresh again.