All of us should realize that death is a part of life. The older that we get, the more we accept it. Our view of life, seeming like it would last for eons when we were very young, becomes more realistic as years pass.
But no matter how old we get and how many times we’ve experienced the death of a family member, friend, co-worker or an acquaintance, it never seems to get any easier.
I thought when I saw my father die unexpectedly, practically at my feet in 1975 when I was 23 years old, that everything would pale in comparison.
To a large degree it has, but when people whom I know die unexpectedly, it still brings back the feelings of that cool fall day 34 years ago.
In many ways, it seems like yesterday. Our team in The Herald Golf League had celebrated winning the championship with a banquet at The Wave Restaurant in Sharon on Sunday, and I got home late, only to find my dad making garlic bread to put in his lunch on Monday morning. Less than seven hours later, my best friend shockingly was gone.
That painful feeling has recurred throughout the years. Not with the magnitude of anguish that I felt with the death of my dad, but surely one of shock in most cases.
I find myself asking the question: “How can it be that he or she was so full of life only a little while ago, and now I’ll never see them again?” We know the answer, but it’s still a bitter pill to swallow because death leaves such a void in our lives.
Such was the case last Thursday night when word spread that friend Tom Hemsing was stricken while playing handball at the Buhl Community Recreational Center and that he had died.
With the proliferation of e-mail, texting, Facebook, Twitter and other Internet-based programs, it didn’t take long to confirm that they couldn’t revive Tom. He was only 60.
I had known Tom, who retired in 2005 after 35 years in public education as a teacher and principal, a long time.
Our daughters graduated from Sharpsville High School together and he had lived right around the corner on Seventh Street.
Tom was an avid tennis player, golfer and handball player. He was a regular at the former Buhl Club on Monday and Thursday nights. But despite his passion for those sports, he loved basketball as well, and every time we got together, our conversation eventually would turn to high school hoops and the many great teams that we had watched in the area.
Tom and I play in the Muscarella’s Golf League in the summers, and it was always fun having him around at the 19th hole.
He was good for more than a few laughs. I last saw Tom at our league banquet in late September, and of course, we got around to talking basketball. We reminisced about a Farrell game with Warren Harding at Farrell years ago, when a scuffle broke out at the end.
The action was right in front of Tom and his “dates” for the game - his daughter Carrie and my daughter Jamie, both of whom were very young spectators.
He wanted me to hang around for one more drink at the banquet, but I had to get going, and left him in the capable hands of my teammate, Phil Faber. I remember telling Tom on my way out, “We’ll pick up this conversation again down the road I’m sure.” We never got that chance.
The older I get, the more I realize that we fret about things, that when placed in the context of life, simply aren’t worth it. Practically every day for all of us, the death of someone close reinforces the adage that life is too short to spend it up to our eyeballs dealing with things that really don’t matter.
We realize that death is inevitable. But it still leaves us scratching our heads with that awful hollow feeling when someone we know leaves us far too soon, especially when we don’t have the chance to say “see ya later” one last time.
Jim Raykie is the editor of The Herald and his columns appears on Mondays. His e-mail is jraykie@sharonherald.com
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