The History of Kat

Feb 14, 2008 - 18:42 PM PST

There was never anything overly significant about my mother. Tall and slim, not overly athletic, not anymore pretty than the next girl, flat chested, and a grin that lasted for miles. She had premature grey hair early in her life; her mother as well, with a strip of grey hair that she said she got in high school. For my mother it was streaked everywhere in her hair. I myself was cursed with my father's side of the female gene: Short, stubby, thick-hipped and big-boned. My father was also tall. I don't know how I ended up being the way I am. My mother and father were the oldest out of their crew; my mother was the oldest out of four; my father the oldest out of five. I am an only child. Some people say that being an only child is spoiling. What actually spoils? I find myself thinking of those spoiled things I supposedly was privilege to as an only child. I suppose that those people don't find themselve thinking about what death does to a person. What death does to an only child.

The first time my only-child-self was priveleged to know about death was when I was 12. My great aunt passed away just two days after my 12th birthday. I remember my mother telling me that she had died, and while that was the time when MTV was broadcast from the new cable television we had, I still had no idea what death was. I knew that I should be sad, and I gave my mother a hug. I knew that she, my mother whom was so strong about many things, was sad about this. My young mind new that enough.

My second happen-chance with death occured when I was in college. It was my best friend. And when it happened, I knew full well what was happening, what was occuring, and that I couldn't stop it and it was horrifying. It was a sad display of a life cut short. A bitch of a death, an "I HATE YOU GOD, FOREVER!" kind of death that never turns itself around. If this were a movie in my life, I would ask that Billy Joel's song Only the Good Die Young be played. I would ask this song to be played during the ending credits, as they were rolling, identifying all the famous actors and actresses whom I would want to be starring in my film: Jessica Biel as myself, of course, Brad Pitt as my father, and - and there's really no one to replace my best friend. Or my mother.