Thoughts on mortality.

I am not naturally morbid, even a heart attack in an isolated location hardly troubled me in that sense, but a memory ambushed me yesterday and made me think on the subject.

My uncle survived the Kamikaze attack on the HMAS Australia at Leyte with a broken neck undiagnosed for several months. He later broke it again diving into shallow water at St Kilda pier and then contracted, and recovered from, tuberculosis. Years later, he told my aunt he was feeling a little off-color in the afternoon and laid down to rest. When she went to wake him for tea, he was dead.

I was feeling a little off-color myself yesterday and decided to give writing away for a while and lie down to rest. Standing by the bed, the memory of my uncle's demise came unbidden--I'd not thought of it for many years--and I paused.

I'm not afraid of death, I disposed of that old bogey many years ago, but it would be damned inconvenient!

It's a great life.

Amy