2017 is one shite kind of year...

so far... If, like me, you thought that 2016 was the pits, the worst - like, for ever! - then, like me, it isn't. 2017 seems, for various reasons, on a par with 2016, and in certain circumstances seems set to exceed all of the crap that 2016 threw at us (and yes, there was a LOT of crap...) The list of the obituaries is quite shocking, really, and then you begin to realise that, at this age, it just happens that way! People get old - and some people aren't allowed that luxury! If you explore the beginning months of 2016, you see that icons came, and they went. Bowie perhaps being the major one, Rickman, et al. It was crap! Would you just stop with the dying, damn it! Oh, no. We ain't done yet.... 2017 has already seen a few very famous faces drop off the radar, and, yes, it's an age thing, but that doesn't make it any easier. I will make a quoted example - my family (and, yes, other animals...) has a pretty good gene pool (or so I thought). I am one of 4 - 2 older sisters and a younger brother. We have 3 first cousins, and all being well (which it isn't...but I digress...) then I thought that we would all be set for seeing in the century - each of us/all of us/whichever. Why so? I hear you ask... Well, my mother died just before her 80th birthday, years ago. My father, however, not only saw my mother die (literally...don't go there...) but then, a year to the day, phoned me up and told me that he was remarrying! Say what? Hold the front page, here you are 82, and you are telling me that you are about to marry - again! - someone who is about 15 years younger than you are...WTF? Anyway, after I had pulled myself up from the floor, I and my siblings accepted this and got on with things (you know, that LIFE thingy...). As it turned out, they were good for each other. We got on pretty well with the new step-mother, and it was a few years of my dad coping with all that was thrown at him. The fact that he actually outlived his second wife...well, nobody saw that coming. Anyway...I digress...my idea/concept was that, since my dad lived to 98, and the general gene pool was looking good, going back through the years, then I thought that all 4 of us would see in a century apiece, all the while missing the bleedin' obvious - just because the stats say one thing then it does not make it so! We now find that my brother has been diagnosed with an incurable ailment called Motor Neurone Disease - the one that basically makes you waste away. And not only that, but he has to go and 'get' (no-one actually knows how anyone 'gets' this damn thing - it's not a virus...so WTF is it?) this tricky ailment. All of that means that he has written his book (https://www.amazon.com/How-Die-Well-Without-God/dp/0995579008) on how to approach the end, with none of that 'religious' clap-trap. This is written for anyone who, like him, has been given a death sentence announcement, but is not, per se, a believer in the whole 'god' thing. He explores much of his growing up in the church, and how, along the way, he grew up. He is at pains, during the book, to explain his reasoning for the story, and that (reasoning) is sadly lacking in so many parts of the world today. And tomorrow. And certainly yesterday! I would recommend the book, to anyone who is dying (news flash - we all are!) or if you may have a relative who is dying, and that person may (or may not) be of a religious persuasion. It does not have to end here - there is life after death - it's just that the person that you have lost won't be around to be part of it; not directly, at least. But their legacy, their memories - they will all live on, in you and the rest of the family. I'd say LLAP, but that isn't going to happen. Not this year, and not for my brother...:( Hopefully, his family and the rest of us will pick up the pieces and continue to grow... PK