Columnist - Howell Dennis

I recall working in my Dad’s office as a teenager, reading the paper one day and taking notice of a friend of mine who was getting married. Since he was the first person from my class to get married I commented “Man, you know you’re getting older when you see your friends in the paper getting married.” To which one of my father’s associates, Judge Rodney Bernard, commented “no Howie, you know you’re getting old when you start seeing your friends in the obituaries.”

Boy was he correct.

Now I don’t consider myself a geriatric quite yet. However, it seems like over the past few years I’ve had several friends die from various causes.

This past week I attended the funeral of an old friend who died way before her time. She had been stricken with cancer and it cut her life short during it’s peak. That one really hurt me - and it will for a while.

I’ve had a friend who basically died of vanity. He had always been a short, small person and about 15 years ago began taking steroids for no other reason than to look muscular. I remember living in Dallas and coming in to visit after he had begun to take them and he just didn’t look right. His entire body didn’t look muscular - it just looked like someone had stuck an air hose in him and pumped him up. He took the body enhancing drugs for over a decade. One morning he went duck hunting with some friends and collapsed when he was walking towards his blind. They later found him floating in the water. The doctor said that it was as if his heart had simply burst.

Another friend of mine from high school developed schizophrenia a few years after graduation. She was on our student council, a cheerleader, and a very beautiful girl. Again I was living in Dallas at the time, but I had heard stories about how she was convinced that people were following her. It got so bad that she never left her house. She ended up committing suicide at the age of 31, leaving three young children without a mother.

I’ve also had people I’ve grown up with die from car wrecks, offshore accidents, and as well as one who was murdered in New Orleans when he was 31 during the course of a mugging.

As for myself, there were a few times when I won’t say I escaped death, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if things had turned out a little differently.

For example, about twenty years ago I was on my way to New Orleans with my friend Jennifer and we were going over the Whisky River bridge. It was nighttime and as you know the bridge is only two narrow lanes. I guess I was going about 70 mph while carrying on a conversation and not paying as much attention as I should have to the road. At the top of the bridge, a car had stalled with no lights on whatsoever. There was a man who was standing on the trunk of the car, frantically waving trying to divert traffic from striking his car. I think I was about ten feet away when I heard Jennifer scream and swerved my car sharply to the right. I kid you not when I tell you that we missed that car by less than three feet.

About a month ago I saw Jennifer again for the first time in about fifteen years and that was one of the first things she brought up. What was strange is after we missed the car that night, while we were a bit shaken for a while, we kept on going to New Orleans and basically forgot about it for the rest of the night.

I guess it takes a few extra years under your belt to understand how fragile life actually is.

My friend who passed away this week helped to remind me of that. Just over a year ago she seemed to be doing fine and as happy as ever. Then one year later, she was gone after a brave fight against cancer. Her picture was in the obituaries yesterday.

And yes Judge Bernard, I feel a little older.

Howell Dennis is a native of Lafayette, La. He attended the University of Texas at Arlington where he graduated in journalism and public relations.