The Meaning of a Death
Currently I am still intensely in denial over Cumpston's death - full of the "this is something that happens to someone else" feeling without the understanding of always being "someone else" to someone else"...I feel like I'm just waiting for someone to call and say "ha ha, we have just been kidding with you!"
Oof - the first step is hard, but I can feel the next phase, anger, coming - it will not be easy.
I am finding this with an extra element of difficulty as I am here, in the woods of Minnesota, isolated from everyone and anyone else who shares in this loss. There is a definite 'We' on the surviving side, but I have been separated from the family. (aside from physical distance my phone is unreliable and internet access is sporadic).
And a family it definitely was, and he was the patriarch. Such a role model, teacher, friend, inspiration, etc etc...someone to be looked up to so much, someone so legendary...it just seems impossible that he could be gone, he seemed so immortal, timeless, even invincible.
I remember back in middle school getting my act together and always sticking through all that junior high bullshit with the aim and knowledge that one day we'd be under his tutelage...he provided a guiding light before I even knew the man as anything more than a name.
It upsets me that I never took the chance to tell anyone how much he meant to me when he was alive, especially Cumpston himself; I was almost embarrassed at the absurd amount of influence and guidance a single person had on my life; a mistake I never hope to make again.
I never got to the chance say goodbye before he moved off to Africa; the importance of which I missed at the time, being able to say to myself that he'll come back and then I could...
I don't even know. It seems so impossible.
Oof - the first step is hard, but I can feel the next phase, anger, coming - it will not be easy.
I am finding this with an extra element of difficulty as I am here, in the woods of Minnesota, isolated from everyone and anyone else who shares in this loss. There is a definite 'We' on the surviving side, but I have been separated from the family. (aside from physical distance my phone is unreliable and internet access is sporadic).
And a family it definitely was, and he was the patriarch. Such a role model, teacher, friend, inspiration, etc etc...someone to be looked up to so much, someone so legendary...it just seems impossible that he could be gone, he seemed so immortal, timeless, even invincible.
I remember back in middle school getting my act together and always sticking through all that junior high bullshit with the aim and knowledge that one day we'd be under his tutelage...he provided a guiding light before I even knew the man as anything more than a name.
It upsets me that I never took the chance to tell anyone how much he meant to me when he was alive, especially Cumpston himself; I was almost embarrassed at the absurd amount of influence and guidance a single person had on my life; a mistake I never hope to make again.
I never got to the chance say goodbye before he moved off to Africa; the importance of which I missed at the time, being able to say to myself that he'll come back and then I could...
I don't even know. It seems so impossible.