BeardedOne
04-24-2009, 12:04 AM
"A Tragedy"
That was the subject line. The email addy was unfamiliar and the note landed in my SPAM filter last night. I found it lingering there when I got up for workies at 1:30 AM EST.
"A Tragedy"
A common SPAM tactic to get people to open the note. It's probably in the top three with "Pope Assassinated" and "Obama Sex Scandal".
"A Tragedy"
My head, still adrift in sleepy-land, wondered: A tragedy that my dick doesn't get hard? Buy Viagra! That my mortgage rates are too high? Refinance now! That I'm in a dreary, dead-end job that pays too little? Become a certified Microsoft flunky!
"A Tragedy"
I moused over the Delete button and paused...
Curiosity got the better of me and I opened it.
Though the sender's addy was unfamiliar, the greeting wasn't, nor was the structure of the message and context. The names mentioned all rang true.
Including the name of the funeral home.
I remember when they first bought the house and laughed at how the massive, Victorian mansion down the street contained a funeral home with the same surname as the bride and mother. A fine Victorian manse in which their son now rests, having abruptly extinguished a bright star that shone over this miserable world for just over nineteen very short years.
I stared at the monitor, thinking it some cruel joke, but the details, the names, the link to the obituary (Just a short mention of dates of birth and death) were all very real.
I see mind-movies in my head. A loved one expressing breast milk for a child she tried so hard to conceive, a wide-eyed five-year old playing with Matchbox cars and eating home-baked cookies, a boisterous fifteen-year old jumping on a hotel bed and almost bumping his head on the ceiling, the sparkle in the eyes of a proud and loving mother, and the gentle sternness in the voice of a nurturing father.
I don't handle grief well. I will cry for weeks when one of my cats dies, but I have yet to shed a tear for my own mother who passed away four years ago. But this...This...This is so very wrong. Not more than three weeks ago I got an upbeat email from my friend and 'lover' (my definition, not hers) telling of her son's excitement at having been accepted at university.
I had been thinking of calling, during a leisure trip to the region this weekend, to take her and her son out to lunch and dinner, as I'd done many times before.
But now it seems that if I visit it will be for a memorial service.
That was the subject line. The email addy was unfamiliar and the note landed in my SPAM filter last night. I found it lingering there when I got up for workies at 1:30 AM EST.
"A Tragedy"
A common SPAM tactic to get people to open the note. It's probably in the top three with "Pope Assassinated" and "Obama Sex Scandal".
"A Tragedy"
My head, still adrift in sleepy-land, wondered: A tragedy that my dick doesn't get hard? Buy Viagra! That my mortgage rates are too high? Refinance now! That I'm in a dreary, dead-end job that pays too little? Become a certified Microsoft flunky!
"A Tragedy"
I moused over the Delete button and paused...
Curiosity got the better of me and I opened it.
Though the sender's addy was unfamiliar, the greeting wasn't, nor was the structure of the message and context. The names mentioned all rang true.
Including the name of the funeral home.
I remember when they first bought the house and laughed at how the massive, Victorian mansion down the street contained a funeral home with the same surname as the bride and mother. A fine Victorian manse in which their son now rests, having abruptly extinguished a bright star that shone over this miserable world for just over nineteen very short years.
I stared at the monitor, thinking it some cruel joke, but the details, the names, the link to the obituary (Just a short mention of dates of birth and death) were all very real.
I see mind-movies in my head. A loved one expressing breast milk for a child she tried so hard to conceive, a wide-eyed five-year old playing with Matchbox cars and eating home-baked cookies, a boisterous fifteen-year old jumping on a hotel bed and almost bumping his head on the ceiling, the sparkle in the eyes of a proud and loving mother, and the gentle sternness in the voice of a nurturing father.
I don't handle grief well. I will cry for weeks when one of my cats dies, but I have yet to shed a tear for my own mother who passed away four years ago. But this...This...This is so very wrong. Not more than three weeks ago I got an upbeat email from my friend and 'lover' (my definition, not hers) telling of her son's excitement at having been accepted at university.
I had been thinking of calling, during a leisure trip to the region this weekend, to take her and her son out to lunch and dinner, as I'd done many times before.
But now it seems that if I visit it will be for a memorial service.