Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

-- e.e. cummings

During a holiday visit fraught with the usual mix of humor and pathos, my mother casually mentioned this tragic story from my hometown. During our November outing, she brought up a recent story about a woman who leapt off the Androscoggin Dam to her death. This recounting of the recent spectacular local tragedies both depresses and annoys me; as a person having lived most of my adult life so far in the city, these stories barely seem to warrant a mention on the local news, and only the most macabre and fascinating get billing on CNN.com. One artifact of rural life seems to be the sporadic, astoundingly AWFUL news story that pervades the nightmares of good people leading an otherwise quiet existence. These stories live in my memory too: the little girl whose father burned her to death in the oven while her sister hid under the bed; the carful of teenagers rear ended and run over by a semi truck on the highway; the high-school accident that claimed the life of my grade-school crush, Chad Nickerson.

All so stupid, so unnecessary. The absurdity and ridiculousness of it angers me. I don't like to talk about the dead. But to some, doing that is honoring them, remembering them as they would maybe prefer to be remembered; not as part of a grisly scene involving the spookily named Jaws of Life, but as a person with thoughts, dreams, flaws, a preference for mayo or mustard, etc.

I guess this is one of many differences between the life I've chosen to lead and the one my parents have chosen for themselves. It's also a difference in the way we choose to deal with death. I don't know what's healthier, but I'm not sure that question is really relevant.