I just came back from Eric Quezada’s memorial. He was the second friend to die in a month. The second amazing activist friend who went way before his time should have been up. 

It doesn’t get easier. No matter how old I get, no matter how many friends I’ve buried (scores of them during the awful AIDS years of the 80s), death still baffles me as much as it did when I was a kid and learned that my Nonno (grandpop) had died after a long battle with asthma and who knows what else.

Nothing that la mia famigila could say helped. “God took him back. He’s up in heaven with the angels.” Why did god have to take him from us? What was the point of living if we have to die? 

In a biologically way of looking at things, death seems to make perfect sense: Our bodies are attacked by some microscopic organism, or our organs wear out, or we get crushed under a car or riddled with bullets on a battlefield. Or maybe some maniac decides to decimate a shopping mall and we happen to be walking out of a store within range of his semi-automatic. 

Doctors can patch and sew, but sometimes their magic is not powerful enough. That was the case with Eric, who fought hard but ultimately lost his battle with cancer. 

Miguel, the other friend who died recently, drowned in a snorkeling accident while vacating with his family in Mexico. It turns out now that it may not have been a complete accident, but the carelessness of life guards on motorized water scooters. 

There’s this great Calvin and Hobbes storyline about an injured raccoon that the precocious kid and his tiger friend (who only comes to life in Calvin’s presence) find near their house. They try nursing it back to health, but the little creature dies anyway.

Broken hearted, Calvin says to Hobbes: “What’s the point of putting him here and taking him back so soon?!? It’s either mean or it’s arbitrary and either way I’ve got the heebie-jeebies.”

I may not hide under the bed like Calvin and Hobbes ultimately did, but I sure get the heebie-jeebies every time I hear that someone I know and love has died. Is it “mean?” That supposes there’s someone or something directing life and death on this planet and in this universe. I don’t believe that. I’m an atheist.

“Arbitrary?” If by that Calvin means that it’s just the course of life as it’s evolved on this planet, then he’s hit the nail on the head. Arbitrary.

Just as shit happens, so does death. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s neither beautiful nor ugly. It’s simply that everything living on this planet is here for a time and then it's gone. The circumstances under which we vanish vary, but the end result is the same.

We like to think we’re the epitome of evolution, and maybe we are, but when it comes to death we’re no different than a roach or a rat. Death is the great equalizer.

It sure as hell hurts, though, when you’re the one left behind after it’s done its dirty deed. As Calvin and I have both discovered.