Hello, sculptin, I have noticed your posts here, and welcome you to a2k.
On this, a friend's death, I am slightly an imposter in that this was not a close friend, so I am not personally totally bereft, and so on, but
she was a friend and I see myself as her. It's been a few days now that some of us have known of this and it's been pretty allround occupying. I have another friend out hiking alone as we speak.
Me, I'm a wuss, but this isn't about me, it's about a not-a-wuss.
I am very glad she was not attacked by animals while alive.
She may have faced her death with grace and acceptance and calm - that she wrote a will tells us that she was both active and understanding of the likely outcome.
She at least died doing something she loved.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Osso)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Thanks, bunny. I feel an imposter re hugs at the same time I am bereftish, so I'll take them.
Yes, I just found that out about the will. Eek, charcoal, I did charcoal early on and got over it, too much sshmooosh, heh.
Same with pastels, and I happen to have noticed that you liked doing pastels, bunny...
anyway, a will in charcoal, what can I say to even catch up with that.
I have trouble imagining these actions - in the circumstances - at the same time I have no trouble at all imagining doing these things to be understood.
Quote:She may have faced her death with grace and acceptance and calm - that she wrote a will tells us that she was both active and understanding of the likely outcome.
She at least died doing something she loved.
as i've read this, the same thought came to mind, small consolation but there are definetly worse places and worse circumstances in which to die alone
I just saw this thread, Osso. Please accept my sympathies.
I hear your anguish and I hope that time will bring you peace. I think you will benefit some from attending her Memorials, it a shame they are so long in the planning. Sometimes when we lose someone and feel an array of emotions, the Memorial services give us an opportunity to sort it all out and help bring some peace to what has happened. Until then, it might hang over you like unfinished business - not in a cold, 'business' sense, but in a way to give your friend the proper rituals of society when she was without society's help during her death.
Osso, I understand that maybe the hardest thing about her death, for you, was the manner of it and the fact that she was alone.
I haven't experienced this, but have imagined it with regard to some people close to me who, if they died today, might not be found for weeks and would be alone. There's something about that -- imagining death -- that is disturbing. Maybe you could imagine it as peaceful as possible. Let's pretend she was hurt, in pain, but that the pain subsided as she neared her death. Maybe she saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets and was filled with peace on her way out. Maybe she wrote her will in charcoal because her final thoughts were of others. Maybe she left her body to paint things that were too beautiful for this earth.
I don't know, I'm rambling.
The horribleness is starting to lift. Dlowan is right, it was the spectre of animals getting to her when she was still alive that was most wrecking my sense of peace.
Those who've said she was doing what she loved are right. And she did have time, time to reconcile and just be, even though she was probably in shock.
Thank you all.
A will in charcoal... what an evocative sentence. Title of a book, or a poem.
If you are willing to accept hugs, another for you. I understand what you mean about specifying that the two of you were not especially close, but this is something that is disturbing for even the casual reader, and of course it's much more disturbing if it is someone you know.
Somewhat similar, somewhat very very different, a guy I went to high school with and knew, barely, lured a small girl away from a gas station and murdered her because he "wanted to know what it was like." This was a few years after graduation. Consumed my thoughts for a while.
Osso--
Reading over this thread again today, I came to the conclusion that your friend died with her boots on.
She was doing something she loved, in country that she loved. When she realized that her best efforts might not be enough to save her life, she made her will with the materials she had at hand.
From your description I think she was a woman who accepted the inevitable and composed her soul for death.
