Death

All posts tagged Death

I’m Still Here

Published February 9, 2026 by Malia

Well, hello there. It’s been a hot minute since I last updated this blog. And a lot has happened in that year and a half or so since my last post. To give you the short version: 2025 sucked.

Still here and want the longer version? Okay. Here goes…

Trigger warning…there’s a lot of death (people & pet)

To start with, I haven’t talked on here about my relationship with my mother the last few years, but it was non-existent. She wasn’t safe for me to be around and I finally had to step away from the relationship. It wasn’t a choice I made easily, but ultimately it was the best choice. I know that people have opinions about children going no-contact with their parent(s), and all I can say is unless you are involved personally in a relationship you have no idea what the whole story is. What you see publicly is not necessarily how things are behind closed doors. I genuinely hope you never find yourself in a situation where you have to make the decision to go no-contact. And if you have been in that situation and had to make that choice, I know it wasn’t easy.

I share all that because it helps to set up what happened in January of 2025. 2025 started with mom getting diagnosed with cancer. It was aggressive. Because of being no-contact with mom, I’d also had to go no-contact with dad. I re-established contact with him and we met for breakfast to catch up and discuss the situation with mom’s health. I’m so glad we got to have that breakfast.

At the end of January 2025, I had my tubes removed. Given the political climate in the U.S., it seemed safer than risk another early-term pregnancy loss. February 4th, a week after I had surgery, mom passed away. Thirteen days later, dad was supposed to return to work, and when he didn’t show up for his shift, my aunt was called to do a wellness check. Sometime between the evening of February 15 and morning of February 17, dad passed away in his sleep. He was very peaceful, according to those who saw him. While I was prepared for mom’s death (as much as one can be), I wasn’t prepared for dad to go. I knew it was possible because they were so close, but his health was pretty good and I thought we were going to have a little bit of time together. His death almost destroyed me, and almost a year later I’m still struggling.

In the midst of all this, my dog, Krypto, started acting off, but I didn’t initially think it was anything other than him reacting to my stress. He always seemed to be very in tune with how I was feeling. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Tom, my husband, noticed something seemed really off and took him to the vet. Turned out, Krypto had a very aggressive form of oral cancer. This was diagnosed not quite two weeks after dad died. The vet told us we’d be lucky to get a month. We weren’t lucky. The day after our tenth wedding anniversary, we said goodbye to Krypto.

Not even two weeks after we lost Krypto, my folks’ cat, Zazzy, was diagnosed with cancer and we lost her as well.

So yeah, 2025 sucked. I spent large chunks of it on heavy meds that basically sedated me because I couldn’t function. I did start improving toward the end of the year. In October, I wrote my next book. It’s a weird book about love and grief. I’m currently trying to sell my parents’ condo, and the market is pretty cold. It’s a bit stressful.

Anyway, I’m still here. Some days are better than others. Last week was the one year anniversary of mom’s death. Tom and I ate a bunch of seafood because she loved seafood. Next week is the anniversary of dad being found. I’m releasing my next book on that day because that date is always going to be devastating, and I need something happy to make it a little less heartbreaking and a little easier to get through.

When I was little, I’d constantly stick my tongue out in attitude. My mom told me that if I didn’t stop, I’d have to lick a bar of soap. I didn’t obey, and quickly learned that, no matter how good it smells, soap is disgusting

Published January 10, 2018 by Malia

How is it a thing that people want to eat laundry pods? I use Gain laundry pods. They smell great, and are kinda fun to touch, but never once have I looked at one and thought, “It’s so squishy and colorful…I have got to put this in my mouth, damn the consequences!”

Y’know what else is colorful and squishy? Jello. And guess what…Jello probably won’t kill you. (Although if you try one of those weird Jello mold recipes from the fifties that were filled with things that should never be in Jello, you might die.)

I have a feeling that if you’re tempted to eat a laundry pod, you never had to lick a bar of soap as a punishment as a child. Because, if you had, you would look at the pod and feel no desire to put it anywhere in the vicinity of your mouth. You’d look at it and think, “This is soap. What kind of moron willingly wants to eat soap?”

And yes, you are a moron if you think that laundry soap is the last word in haute cuisine.

So don’t eat laundry pods.

A Little Knowledge Is Not Only Extremely Dangerous…It’s How I Can Be 100% Certain I’m Mortally Wounded

Published August 25, 2014 by Malia

If you’ve ever been on WebMD (or really, anywhere on the internet), you’re probably aware it’s only a short matter of time before you come to the conclusion that you have somehow contracted Dengue Fever and Lyme Disease and have an inoperable nasal tumor that is going to grow into your brain causing you die in 24 hours from dehydration and lacerations.  I discovered years ago, in tech school, that when constantly learning about diseases and parasites and such, it was extremely easy to convince myself that every time my nose itched I must be dying.  I think it’s human nature to be a bit of a hypochondriac.  Some people take it to the extreme…

 

…but most of the rest of the world doesn’t let it get too out of hand.

Last week was a roller coaster of real and imagined pain and illness.  I was sick early on, but it was only one of those 24 hour bugs.  Then, there was a situation that took place that sent my stress level through the roof, and basically left me having tons of panic attacks and finding it difficult to function.  I’m not terribly proud of my inability to handle stress like a balanced human being.

However, while all this was going on, I started noticing a pain, that I was definitely not imagining, coming from my foot.  It started as just a bit of an ache.  I didn’t think much about it, other than blaming it on the fact that I’m getting a bit older, and with age comes new aches.  By Sunday, though, the pain had actually gone from achy to quite sharp whenever there’s pressure on my foot.  So, I’ve been wrapping it, using my awesome bandaging skills (this is something I should put on my resume, because I really do have fantastic bandaging skills).  It really does hurt, but where the pain is stemming from, even if I did go to the doctor, I’m pretty sure they’d tell me to take ibuprofen, wrap it, alternate heat and ice, and  try to stay off it.  I don’t need to spend big bucks to get told to do what I’m already doing (and yes, it would still cost me even with my health insurance).

So, for now, I’m just going to grit my teeth and do my best to try to let my foot heal.  Thanks for letting me whine (I’d offer cheese to go with the whine, but I’m too lazy to make good on the offer).

Oh Look, A Bandwagon…

Published August 13, 2014 by Malia

Growing up, my life was surrounded by death.  I’ve mentioned before that I grew up a pastor’s kid.   The first church my dad was a pastor in, was also the church the town mortician attended.  This meant my dad officiated A LOT of funerals.  In the four years we were at that church, I attended more funerals than most people will ever have opportunity to attend.  Then, when I was in junior high and high school, I regularly went to play Taps at veteran funerals.  (The perk of living in the middle of nowhere and being a trumpet player).  All of these experiences had a bit of weird impact on how I deal with death.  Mainly, funerals don’t freak me out, and death doesn’t terrify me.  I will admit that I can tend to be a bit callous about death.  It’s not intentional.  I have a very dark sense of humor, and on occasion I have cracked jokes that are in terrible taste, sometimes relating to death/dead people.  (Nothing beyond PG, but definitely in poor taste).

Most deaths don’t get much reaction from me.  People live, people die, more people are born.  It’s the circle of life…

Yeah, I went there…

The point is, death has been such a large part of my life, I tend to just accept it as something that happens.  When people die, I feel sympathy for their friends and family members they leave behind, but I’m afraid that sometimes I don’t feel very much beyond this about the dead person…

And yes, I do realize how horrible that makes me seem.

So, I was surprised by how sad I felt when I heard that Robin Williams had committed suicide.  I can count on one hand the amount of celebrities whose deaths have really made genuinely sad (Jim Henson, Charles Schultz, and Mr. Rogers, in case you’re wondering).

It would be very easy to sit here and judge him for selfishly giving into an “easy” out.  It would be easy to be angry that he willingly gave up a future, when there are millions who wish they could live for just one more day.

It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be right or fair.  I’m reminded of what Tolkien wrote, ““Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

I pray for those who are struggling with depression and who will witness this and think suicide might be their best plan.  As someone who’s been down that road, I can honestly say life does get better.

My heart aches for his family.  I grieve the laughs that will never be, and the talent that has been silenced.

It’s Not Worth More Than Life

Published April 3, 2014 by Malia

I have a lot of things I’m scared of.  Snakes, spiders, snakes, heights, snakes, anything in a scary movie, snakes…well, you get the idea.  However, the two all time scariest moments of my life actually took place while I was driving (and neither involved snakes).  One, of course, is when I went off the road in a blizzard.  Granted, I didn’t get scared until after being rescued, and I realized that I should have died.  The all time scariest moment came in December of 2009.

It was noon on Saturday, December 5th, 2009, I was with my parents, and I was driving on West Center (a main road here in Omaha).  Being the noon hour, traffic was heavy.  We were sitting in a long line of traffic waiting for the light at 120th & W. Center to change.  I remember looking up in my rear view mirror and seeing a car coming up behind me.  I could tell that it wasn’t slowing down, and even though my foot was already on the brake (because we were stopped), I put as much pressure into holding the brake down as I could.  Right before the car slammed into the back of my car, I saw that the driver was just chatting away on her cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that she was about to cause an accident.  The impact came, our car was pushed up into the car in front of us, and then unexpectedly the car behind us hit us a second time.  It took a moment, but when no more impacts came, it was time to see what had happened.

Turns out, the woman who hit us wasn’t the only one on her phone not paying attention.  There was another woman in the car behind the woman who rear ended us, and she too was on her cell phone.  You read that right, both women were talking on their cell phones not paying a whit of attention to anything.  Not only that, but it ended up being a paramedic who witnessed what happened who called 9-1-1.  I didn’t have a phone at the time, and the gentleman who’s truck I got pushed into didn’t have one either.  Neither of the two women who caused the accident bothered to ever use their phones to call 9-1-1.

Miraculously, no one was killed, or injured; which considering the fact that both women were going at least 45 mph when they hit is pretty amazing.  (Although, the stress of the event triggered a nightmare medical situation with my mom over the next week, but that’s a story for another post.)

Ever since that nightmare day, I’ve been very anti using your cell phone to text or call while driving.  That accident should never have happened.  So, you can imagine the rage I felt yesterday when I got on Facebook, and saw one of my acquaintances had written that when a guy honked and shook his finger at her for texting and driving, she proceeded to flip him off and continue texting at the same time.  And to make it really great, she hash-tagged it “multitasking.”

Cue Seth and Amy, it’s time for “Really?”.  Really?  REALLY??????

Last time I checked driving is not the time to be “multitasking.”  A car is an incredibly dangerous weapon when used irresponsibly.  And yes, I consider texting and driving to be just as irresponsible as talking on the cell phone and driving.  If you don’t care about your own life, show respect and care for other people’s lives.  People in the cars around you are human beings.  Every single driver is someone’s daughter or son.  Every single passenger is someone’s daughter or son.  This isn’t “The Sims” where you can just recreate the character should Death come knocking.  There is no pause button, and the game doesn’t reset just because someone died.   Those other drivers don’t deserve to have their lives taken away or messed up badly because you don’t have the patience to wait until you’ve reached your destination to use your phone.

At the end of the day, life is too valuable to destroy so recklessly and irresponsibly.

How do you feel?

Published January 25, 2014 by Malia

At the beginning of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, we see Spock retraining his brain on Vulcan.  The computer is running him through all these exercises, and then it stops and says, “How do you feel?”  Spock becomes quizzical and replies, “I do not understand the question.”  Spock’s mom then shows up and explains how being half-human means he has feelings.  This leads into a discussion about the illogical-ness of human feelings.  

And then Spock and his friends go back to 1984 to get some whales.  

I’m  ashamed to admit it, but lately I’ve been feeling a bit numb.  Okay, that’s an understatement.  I am numb.  It’s been coming on gradually, and it’s really been the last two days that I’ve noticed how numb I’ve gotten (I’m not really sure how long this has been going on, either.  I do know it’s been a long time since I truly felt anything.). Emotion-wise, I literally feel nothing.  I don’t feel happy, or sad, or sympathetic, or anything that I should be feeling.  In fact, when I get into situations where I need to show some sort of emotion, I find myself mentally saying, “This is a sad situation.  Be sad.  Remember sadness?  You need to act like you feel that way right now.” 

Unfortunately, I think my brain is just wired wrong.  No matter what emotion I tell myself I should at least act like I’m feeling, the completely wrong one makes an appearance.  As of right now, I’m sure that there are probably some who think I need to be locked up in the loony bin.  Normal people don’t smile when they talk about how a family member has just died (y’know, unless the dead family member was horrible, which hasn’t been the case regarding my dead family members).  

I wasn’t always this way.  I used to feel emotions.  I used to care.  The thing is, it’s been a brutal ten years.  Ever since March of 2004, for every moment of happiness, there’s been overwhelming heartbreak (and yes, I know some of it has been my own fault, and I’ll gladly take responsibility for it, but quite a bit of it hasn’t).  I think I’ve been trying to defend against further heartbreak by giving myself an emotional lobotomy.  If I can’t feel, then I can’t be hurt anymore, right?  I know it’s a bad way to handle things, and completely immature.

 Fortunately, I never said I was mature.

 However, I am interested in remaining a member of the human race.  Which means, like Spock, I must rediscover my humanity.  Because, like Spock, when the end of the movie comes, I would like to be able to say, “Tell her…I feel fine.”  

Because, clearly, this is what you do as Vesuvius erupts.

Published January 5, 2014 by Malia

I wasn’t going to post tonight.  I’m tired, it’s been a emotionally draining two days, but when I saw this, I felt like I had to say something…

http://www.imdb.com

I was on IMDB, when this poster caught my eye.  Maybe I’m just too exhausted to process this one with an open mind.  When I think of Pompeii, I do not think, “Sweet!  I bet people were totally making out as fire and death rained down around them!”  I realize that there’s this idea that every movie has to have a love story, but this one is making even my brain hurt.  Then, I thought, maybe I was misjudging the poster.  Maybe it wasn’t a good representation of the story, so I went to the movie’s page on IMDB, and found this little plot gem:

“A slave turned gladiator finds himself in a race against time to save his true love, who has been betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator.  As Mount Vesuvius erupts, he must fight to save his beloved as Pompeii crumbles around him.”

Okay, I didn’t misjudge the poster.  And yes, I suppose a poster like that and plot are going to bring in moviegoers much more quickly than a poster with an image like this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1272171.stm

People died horrible deaths that day, and if a movie is going to be made about Pompeii, that’s the story that should be told.

All we need is an evil twin

Published January 3, 2014 by Malia

A million years ago…well, maybe not a million, but definitely before I was born the Thanksgiving dinner happened.  Family lore holds (and I’ve been told this by many members of our family) that they were having Thanksgiving dinner when my great-aunt’s mother had a heart attack and died at the table.  On the one hand, I’m really glad I wasn’t born yet, because that would’ve been a horrible experience, and yet it would’ve certainly help when people are all, “Oh, that didn’t really happen,” and I could be all, “Yeah, it did.  I WAS there!” instead of, “Well, that’s what everyone says happened.”  I share this delightful bit of family history with you all, because it helps explain a very bad joke I made the other day.

When my uncle passed away on New Year’s Eve, I joked that I wondered who was going to die on the next holiday.  Y’know, since Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve  had already been claimed.  It was a joke!  Absolutely no seriousness intended.  It was me dealing badly with emotions, because I’d much rather laugh than cry.

When I got home from work last night (1/2), I came home, and mom seemed a little off.  We talked about how my day at work had gone, and then she held out her hand to me.  Sensitive cretin that I am, I just said, “What?”  I figured she was just trying to show love to me in light of us dealing with our uncle’s death.  Instead, she said, “Aunt Faye passed away yesterday.”

Oh.

On New Year’s Day.

To top it off, she told me that our cousin (Aunt Faye is my great-aunt) doesn’t expect Aunt Faye’s husband to make it past February.  So, I guess Valentine’s Day has been claimed?  (Sorry, so, so, sorry, that was super tactless).

Sometimes I feel like soap opera writers take notes for their plots from our family.  When things happen, it’s always the extreme version of things.  We’ve had a long lost relative reestablish contact with the family after 40 years of silence.  We’ve had a woman have a baby that doctors before and long after claimed was an impossibility.  A kamikaze pilot went down in the backyard of a relative during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and she lived to tell the tale.  And now, we apparently die on holidays.

I’m thinking it’s good an evil twin hasn’t shown up yet, but definitely not ruling out the possibility.

He was a GREAT-Uncle

Published December 31, 2013 by Malia

Brain: You need to put on socks.

Me: Why?

Brain: Because you don’t want your feet to be cold and your toes to get frostbit.

Me:  Is it really that important?

Brain: Yes.  You have to wear shoes to work, and you need socks if you’re going to wear shoes.

Me: Oh.

Brain: Also, don’t forget your lunch.

Well, I remembered the socks and forgot my lunch.  1 out of 2 ain’t bad considering how today went.

My Uncle Mike passed away kind of suddenly this morning, shortly before I went to work.  We’re all still kind of in shock here, hence me actually questioning the wearing of socks.

Uncle Mike was a pretty amazing guy.  He was incredibly smart, and really seemed to love life.  He was my great-uncle, but he was almost like another grandpa to me.  He was very kind to me, and even as I got older he still showed that he cared about me.

When I was little I would get to see him once a year.  We would come home to Nebraska for two weeks during the summer, and he and Aunt Donna would usually kid-sit me one of the nights we were home.  I loved them and their home.  Uncle Mike had a vintage Pong machine that he would hook up for me so I could play.  It was my first encounter with a videogame console, and I was a bit hooked.

At the end of those visits, he would usually slip me a twenty, which-to a kid with no money-was a pretty big deal.

When I was in high school, we were visiting him one night, and he was talking about this foreign exchange student they had hosted years earlier, and how he had told the kid that if they ever got married, he would be at the wedding.  He then turned to me and promised me that when I got married he would be there.  It was funny, because I didn’t even think about it until today while I was at work.  It was so hard when Grampa died because I knew he would never get to attend my wedding (should that magical day ever happen), and now both Grampa and Uncle Mike won’t be there.

When I was in school training to be a vet tech, I was taking Pharmacology.  Uncle Mike was a pharmacist, and he ended up working for the State of Nebraska.  (I’m not sure what he did exactly, but I know that if you were a pharmacist who was not behaving properly, my uncle was the last person you wanted to see walk into your pharmacy).  Pharmo wasn’t an easy class for me, and most of the time I felt that if I had to memorize one more drug that had a name ending in “-myicin/micin” I was going to scream.  When I got through the class, and passed.  Uncle Mike told my Gramma (his sister) to tell me that not only was he proud of me, but also to remember that if something wasn’t hard, it wasn’t worth doing.  This is probably some of the most meaningful advice an adult has ever given me.

So, as 2013 closes, I say good-bye to my uncle, and wish you all a happy and safe New Year’s.

The Post-Holiday Calm

Published December 27, 2013 by Malia

Time for a random stream of things that have been going on…

Well, another Christmas has come and gone.  This was a better Christmas than the last couple.  Last year was the first Christmas after Grampa dying.  I was in a bad place due to a really crappy year, and the whole day just felt off.  I ended up sleeping for most of the day.  Also, this year I was finally financially stable enough that I was able to get presents for everyone.  As someone who enjoys gift giving, this made me quite happy.

I saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug two weeks ago.  I’m still not 100% certain what I think of it.  It was beautifully done.  The dragon was amazing.  However, there were so many changes, the book nerd in me is still having trouble resigning myself to the movie.  I’m anxious to see the extended edition so that I may make a better final judgement.

I saw Catching Fire three weeks ago, and it was absolutely amazing!  Heartbreaking, but amazing.  There was only one change that they made that I was genuinely irked by, but it was pretty insignificant when I considered how accurate everything else was.

I came home tonight to find two police vehicles in our parking lot.  Not police cars, these were SUV type automobiles.  Apparently, there’s been a spree of robberies in town, and they tracked the burglars to one of the condo buildings in the grouping where we live.  I guess the burglars stole something that had GPS in it, and they were stupid enough to turn it on.  Hence the police finding where they were hiding out at.  I guess it was quite exciting about half an hour before  I got home from work.  Mom said the police helicopter and about fifteen police SUV-things were here.   Sad, but also relieved I missed it.

We’ve been passing around some sort of nasty bug at work.  I know, I know, it’s a shocker that disease would be present at a medical reference lab…  I’ve spent 3 weeks with horrible headaches and stomachaches.  It’s been loads of fun.  Also, it’s been making me an absolute “delight” to be around.  I’m afraid it’s sealing my status as nasty witch with a capital B at work.  Which is really too bad, cause I’m a pretty nice person.  Or at least, I used to be.

So, I really want one of the single serving Keurig machines.  There’s only one small problem: it’d be a bit of a waste of money.  I don’t drink coffee and I rarely drink tea or cocoa.  I think I’m just generally fascinated by them, and that has led to this ridiculous desire to own one.

Sherlock is returning!  If you’ve never watched it, go to Netflix now and fix this part of your life.  (There’s only six episodes currently, it’s less than a day of binge watching.)  One of my friends spent yesterday watching it for the first time, and she proceeded to say, “I could listen to Benedict Cumberbatch read the phone book.”  I happen to agree with this.  He and Alan Rickman could get together and read the sides of cereal boxes and the backs of shampoo bottles and it would be the most fantastic thing ever.