Alone to Die?

A cousin of mine passed away on Thursday. We only stayed in touch sporadically - often through other family members - so the news about her death reached me this morning.

"Yogi's" nickname became the only one that most people knew her by. Somehow, it suited her. Picture a smiling (and always slightly mischievous) young woman who radiated an attitude of "Let's just have fun!"

When we were kids, Yogi and her two sisters were my closest buddies for the two years I lived in Big Spring. I was born there in my mother's hometown on the military base where my father was stationed. My cousins were born there, raised there and damn near defined the meaning of living there.

Those months between my twelfth and fourteenth years really were my formative ones. For Yogi and her sisters, it was just the life they were born to live.

We girls played "church", mimicking what we saw in services we attended at least three times a week. We danced to Jackson Five music and had serious arguments over which of us would end up marrying Marlon instead of Michael - though my cousin Candy preferred Jermaine. One time, my other cousin, Rene, and I performed a dance routine for the other girls. The song we used was "Island Girls" with Elton John and Kiki Dee. (Why did I just remember that? And why did it make me cry so hard?)

A couple of things happened during my time in Big Spring that haunted our lives - my cousins and mine - for so many years. First, I fell in puppy-love with a certain young man. Second, my Uncle "Hotshot" died.

Love and death have things in common.

My uncle's death brought some of us closer together. It gave some of us reasons to build chasms of pain and anger between each other. One of the girls did not attend her father's funeral. She didn't want that to be her last and lasting memory of him. One of the girls followed in the steps of the alcoholism that killed my uncle. One of them started marking time for the day she could leave the town and never come back.

Years later, I married that boy I had loved so much as a child. He broke my grown-up heart and I let it shatter me in a lot of ways. While I was with him, I briefly returned to Big Spring. Maybe I was trying too hard to go back in time.

Big Spring had changed but it hadn't. It seemed so much smaller to me.

Yogi was there, but battling demons of her past just like I was trying to recreate mine. Rene had made it out and Candy had just wandered away. As far as I know, Candy never did attend another funeral. Some of the chasms built in the past had widened from either intent or neglect.

A few years ago, I gave up trying to summon the ghosts of my youth.

My aunt died last year. Yogi, having grown stronger and wiser and more peaceful with her life, handled everything beautifully and on her own. She was doing well.

When my sister called me with the news that Yogi was gone (I hate using the word "dead" because dead means nothing ever anymore), I felt so strange. It was as though something from this side of life shed from my being and shifted to another side.

Yogi died (as another cousin of mine had) during an asthma attack. Someone had come to visit her and found her on the floor.

The first thing I said to my sister is that I hated so much that Yogi had died alone. Think about that, though. Death is a lonely thing. Even if we die in a room of other people dying at the same time, we leave this life on our own. No matter who we are, what we are or do or own, dying is going to be a solo experience.

As a Christian, I believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe there is a Heaven, Hell and an Eternity. I want to believe something I was taught as a child: that, as we are dying, angels will come to us.

What was Yogi thinking as she was dying? Was she afraid? I hope not. I hope God sent someone to take her hand and let her know that she was was going to be okay.

R.I. P. Yogi