Death's Witness

 

I feel like death has been standing behind me lately.

Not touching me.

Not taking me.

Just close enough that I can feel it breathing.

Throughout my life, death has taken people I love — the closest people.

And the strange thing is, I’ve almost always had a window before it happened.

A visit.

A moment.

A strange, cosmic link.

Like Chimmy Chanhrattana.

He was my neighbor around the time my great-grandfather's house burned down. His family and mine were close. Our parents would visit each other, have dinners, take food over. He was my age. This was around junior high school.

We didn’t stay close as adults, but he was always cool with me. One of those people I always appreciated.

One day, years later, I was pumping gas in Ingleside and he pulled up to the stall next to mine. Out of nowhere. We caught up, talked about our families, laughed a little. It felt really good to see him after so long.

Maybe a week later, he was gone. January 28, 2019.

https://www.puenteandsons.com/obituaries/chimmy-chanhrattana

Then there was John Morgan.

We stayed in touch for a while through actual mailed letters when he was in the Army. Over the years we checked in from time to time, and then drifted into a long stretch of nothing.

One day I made a random visit back to my hometown of Rockport and went into a pub I had never been to before. Somehow, John was there too. He had chosen that same place on that same day.

The pub was crowded and noisy, full of people and distractions. At one point I even ran into my ex-girlfriend. She wanted my attention and was eager to show off her new boob job, with her husband not far away. It was awkward and surreal, and it would have been easy to let the night go in a completely different direction.

But John and I chose something else.

We left the main area and found an empty meeting room. We spent hours catching up, laughing, and talking about life.

Later, we went together to visit a mutual friend John had a crush on. I stayed a little longer with them and then went home.

About a week later, John was gone.

January 18, 2010.

While looking for John’s obituary today, and finding no trace of one, I learned something else instead — that his mother had passed recently.

Her name was Doris.

She loved John Wayne. Loved him enough to fill John’s house with pictures of him. Loved him enough to name her son after him.

John Wayne Morgan. And she loved her son very much.

So even in trying to locate John in death, I ran into another loss — his mother’s.

https://www.charliemarshallfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/doris-morgan?ttm_pid=208819554&ttm_affiliate=legacypro&ttm_affiliatetype=standard&ttm_campaign=legacy

It felt like another reminder of how this keeps unfolding outward.

Not just the people I lost, but the people who raised them.

The lives behind the lives.

Then Dr. Perry.

We had been bickering about something small and stupid. Nothing that mattered. I felt the pull to reach out and make it right — but I didn’t follow my gut.

Then I got the call.

He had passed. May, 28, 2010.

I had to accept my friend was gone, throw on my clothes, and go straight to his funeral.

https://www.natchezdemocrat.com/obituaries/alton-perry-jr-39882

Then there was Lloyd. Lloyd Wayne Van Zandt.

Weeks before he passed, I made a random visit and caught up with him. He reached out to me and asked me to remember him with a song: “Carry on Wayward Son.” Not long after that, he was gone too. April 21, 2016.

https://www.caller.com/story/life/announcements/obituaries/2016/04/23/obituaries-042316/91507402/

While searching for his father, Charles Wayne “CW” Van Zandt, to pay my respects, I learned that he had passed on October 28, 2017. He was a good man and someone who was there for me when I needed help. He was a loving husband and father, a good friend to others, and is remembered and missed by all who crossed his path.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/seguin-tx/charles-vanzandt-7619200

That same year LD was taken. August 2, 2016.

Lloyd De La Rosa — “LD” — was my favorite cousin and my mom’s favorite cousin too. The last time I saw him was random, brief, and unforgettable. He helped me build a small recording booth, showed me pictures of his llamas (or maybe alpacas), and talked about getting more. He also introduced me to the woman he was about to marry.

Not long after, they were both involved in a freak motorcycle accident. LD was pronounced dead at the scene, and his new wife was left in a coma for some time. LD had spent his life in service as a detective and police officer in Aransas County and Aransas Pass, later finishing his career as a school police officer. I’m grateful for that last day with him. He is still greatly missed.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/caller/name/lloyd-de-la-rosa-obituary?id=39341929

After that, life did something strange.

I ended up writing for a prestigious news publication and fell into a niche beat: obituary writing.

It’s its own subculture, documented in a 2016 production called Obit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obit_(film)

I didn’t go into it wanting to be an obit writer.

The need was there.

And it came naturally.

I mourned every single person I wrote about.

I would cry after almost every article.

I would call my parents afterward, just to hear their voices.

Because I got to know these people through the eyes of their loved ones — and then I had to be the one to place the end date on them.

Every single loss hurt me.

Every single article.

Over and over again.

Death is no stranger to me. He waits, and when he moves, he masterfully presents his work in a way I cannot look away from. I am made to endure it. With my hands behind my back, I watch and feel everything. Tears are the only action I can take outwardly, because there is nothing I can do while I am restrained.

Lately, reminders of loss seem to surface without asking. Small things catch my attention and refuse to let go, as if grief has tuned my vision to a different frequency.

I don’t know if every moment is a sign. Maybe it is. But I know sorrow changes how you see. It sharpens everything. You start noticing things you used to walk past without a thought. Stuff that used to be ordinary doesn’t feel ordinary anymore. It feels loaded. Like it means something now whether you want it to or not.

Death doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t wait for the right time or for unfinished conversations. It interrupts. And when loss has already carved space in your life, another absence feels less like an event and more like added weight.

Leilani’s passing reaches further than itself because she is tied to a chapter of my life that already carries grief. She belonged to a season shaped by my mother’s sudden and unexpected death — one of the people who remained when others faded. Her loss reopens that corridor.

Still, this moment is not about comparison. My mother’s death does not consume Leilani’s. Her life stands on its own. Her absence matters on its own.

What hurts most is not where the dead have gone, but where the living remain. We are the ones who carry memory. We are the ones who feel the gap.

I asked my father this morning if he feared that one of us would die before the other and leave one of us to do this alone. He simply answered, “Death comes for us all.”

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