Died of Dysentery.

I recall the death as tragic. A swift prompt from my green and black screen. 

“We lost Sally!” Dang it. As the mechanical piano played a tune.  

Emotions running wild at this point. Why did we not see this coming? How could we have allowed this sickness to spread as though it was a mere cold? Why are we on this trail if only to lose everybody in the process? 

The Organ Trail game was a classic. Despite various versions, there seemed to be one common feature for us all, dysentery. OK, that, and what do we do when we get to the river? I always forged it.

I never even knew what dysentery was, or that it could be significant enough to kill a person if left unmanaged. I knew it was related to digestion, however, living in the modern times of a video game depicting this disease, it was nothing more to me than some diarrhea. Goggle reports the disease is “rare” and less than 200,000 cases per year in the US. Uncomfortable and embarrassing sure, but deathly and common enough to where we all experienced it?   

The thing was, there were no options. Even if the career you chose was a doctor, which ironically didn’t pay well back in the day, not like a banker, you had no skill to save the life of your own child. Also, names like “Sally,” weren’t really what it was like. I would put classmates’ names in place of the computer-generated ones to make it all so real. 

So, when the prompt came up that another had died, what else is left but to move on. Keep on trucking towards, um, well, the end of the game I guess. It’s kind of what we are supposed to do with troubling situations in this life. A crude comparison, for losing a loved one in real life has significant impacts, where on the game it meant conservation of food. Sometimes, I would make it to the end alone because, well, I could always feed myself. Real life loses are much more significant, because unlike the game, a loss of life entails a certain loss of self. Real life's losses bring about a prompt unlike the flash on a screen, but sentiment that what was once, is no longer there.  

Death is not the topic at hand here, as much as is coping for the survivors is. For the one's lost, their battle is over. They watch from afar not wanting anymore of this, finding a peace unimaginable, unfathomable in this life. Death, the ultimate trigger to problematic emotions, not only involves the feelings in this life, the concrete, but also involves another life, beyond. For in this life, if my wife left me, she would still be alive, my daughter would still have her mom. Death however is such a conclusion, leaving the survivors with hope to see outlived ones again in Heaven.

Death and the way we cope involves pain. It involves a stress, a new void exposing parts of us we never knew existed, without that person. Some deaths might just be the idea of them no longer being available, but others might be a pillar in our life where everything is now different, empty, shallow, worst of all, void. Yes, we might comprehend and fully believe that person is still here in spirit, watching over us in Heaven, playing cards with Jesus, but it is not the same as them sitting next to us, in this life, suffering from the same human condition. Lack of physical presence not only diminishes what we offer to them, but also them comforting us in the ways that we are familiar. This loss of touch, knowledge of any potential future occurrence, a romanticized idea of events yet to come, all parts, minor in the aftermath of a dramatic event, contributing to a variety of feelings, leading up to the ultimate acceptance of death. It is not that we fail to accept it, but we fail to see a changed life without the knowledge this person existing, even if when they were alive, they were halfway around the world, therefore out of our proximity and in a lot of ways out of our mind. We have undoubtedly accepted that death comes to us all, however like Sally, the prompt can be so bold, so unexpected, that us humans, the altruistic species we are, cannot help but wonder what we could have done to solve this, fix in some way. If only...

Though it was a cartoon display of human trials and tribulations, The Organ Trail dealt with hunger, resources, unpreventable and inescapable death, all things we here in the real world struggle with. Even though it was a game, it involved loss. I always felt like there should have been a way to revive, or prevent entirely, the death of a family member. I never had a chance to prepare or say goodbye. Never allowed to choose to comfort a dying child. In some ways, this was my first experience into the real world, the unfairness, and the surprise of someone there one day, and gone the next. 

These words, mere indicators of assumed feelings, for I am not currently suffering. However, have suffered know the irrational thoughts that loss of a piece of self in another can spark. Talking, digesting, living in it, all methods with their specific techniques one can engage in to simply, "make it through," this bereavement period stronger, more understanding, able to help those to come who will inevitably feel what you felt. A comfort you will then provide in a way only a fellow survivor could. 

For more insight into things that can cause us disdain in our own lives, while alive that is, click HERE, for my story on Body Image Disorder.