Death: A Double Connotation?

Sometimes, I decide to journal for fun or because something exciting has happened. Unfortunately, I’m driven to journal, many times, due to unfortunate events that occur. I feel alone inside this morning as I write this entry. God has been good to our family, both intimate and extended, in, for the most part, not allowing death to rear its ugly head upon us. In my lifetime a few grandparents, acquaintances, and a rare friend has passed away. Death is something that many people in the world have great experience with. Most gratefully I can say that I don’t and I hope to elude such experiences with it. But what hurts the most about death in the small element that I have felt and seen in other’s experience comes from the pain of absence from the one who has moved on. Their smile, the hugs they gave, the jokes they cracked, the service they volunteered, the listening ear they had ready, the love they showed, etc, etc. They are a part of one’s life and then they are not. I think that death could be defined as just that, a removal from, an absence, the cutting off of one from another. Maybe the word death is always used in the literal sense: Of one's passing from this life to the next or the physical change from functioning to ceasing. But could it not also be used in the more figurative meaning mentioned above: the removal of? If death can signify the removal of, then I would say that this week I have felt that “death” in my life.

Road Biking

A new era has begun. Road biking. I just got my first road bike, a Roubaix Elite. The maiden voyage was yesterday, 9/11/09. I followed that up with another ride today. I recorded the second half of the ride and I'm now going to attempt an upload of the map showing my return route.