Death in the Family

[Lightning Rod]

I knew that Marcia was OK when....

Some years ago my best friend, O.P. overdosed and died. His wife Marcia was also my friend. I had known her for a number of years and was also friends with her first husband, the Dallas punk rocker Bobby Sox. He had also overdosed and died, so this was the second husband that she had lost in the same manner. I was in the waiting room with her when the doctor came in shaking his head. As you might expect, Marcia went to pieces. This was the second time she had been through this experience and this time she had a three year old daughter.

I was grieved at the loss of my dear friend, but I was worried about Marcia.

For the next several days I kept close watch on her and tried to help in any way I could. The day after the funeral I came into the house and Marcia was on the phone. She was talking to her mother-in-law. They never got along well. Marcia had arranged for O.P.'s body to be donated to the Southwest School of Medicine.

Marcia had a wicked sense of humor.

On the phone, I heard her say, "Matilda, you finally got your wish, your son made it into medical school."

At that point I knew Marcia was going to be OK.

When you see a sense of humor, you know there is a will to live.

[gypsyjoker]

Thank you. I needed that. I got an older brother who is a psychiatrist, he told me once that I had a sick sense of humor. But it has got me out of a couple of tight situations at Hunts Point back in NYC. So I don't worry much about it.
But, I have seen a joke draw blood too.
The Ballad of The Old Gunfighter
"when lives were lost at the turn of a joke."
That little asshole Johny Paycheck shot a guy in a bar back in Ohio, something about mock turtle soup. Somebody was joking but he didn't get it.

I rember Doreen writing a thing about a little boy in elementary school who broke her heart. Another little girl stole him away. She wondered what lesson she should have learned about men.

I though there was a message in there about little girls. What bitches women can be to each other.

[diesel dyke]

While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
.

GOD DAMN! The pusher
God damn the pusher.
I said God damn! God damn the pusher man!

I am truly sorry about the death of your friend.
I know if my son died of an overdose (and it has almost happened) I would be clinging to life by a thread. It would take one phone call like that to destroy me.
Guilt is the destroyer.

sorry but it is almost more than I could bear. I think the loss of a child is beyond the loss of a husband. I hope she is well too.

[stilltrucking]

I don't know about that big mama. I got no children, but maybe that is just the kind of phone call his mother needed. We don't know the details. Maybe she was a heartless bitch that drove her son to an early death. Maybe it was the stroke that broke his mother's heart. A heart that needed to be broke. Maybe it angered her so much it brought her out of it. But his wife was a mother too. Maybe she needed to make that phone call to carry on.

Don't be so quick to judge.