I am currently retired and live in Clinton Township, Michigan. I worked the majority of my life as a Quality Control Manager and Engineer in the Plastic Industry. I became interested in Find A Grave as a means to document my relatives lives, and to supplement the information my daughter Nicole collected through genealogical research. She was able to research our family history through approx 15 generations and 50,000 names.
Most of my records are relatives, or friends with the exception of some notables in Clinton Grove Cemetary where I frequently ride my bike.

My thoughts on death:
We pass into oblivion, lying as base elements to be used in the formulation of other entities. Sharing the electrons and protons and other atomic concentrations with whatever organic assemblage is likely to evolve.

We lie in dust, but continue on in memory for what we were, the actions we stumbled upon in our brief time. The undying elements counterpoint our quiet demise and memories flicker and fade as each day another passes. Attainment of an eternal union coupled with the superstitious elements of tradition: symbolic rituals, haggard drawn undertakers vested in black, granite slabs of identity, sonorous organ fugues, burning candles, ascending incense, the cold impersonal scalpel wielded in autopsy. Viewing death the mind rebels the loss of conditioning. A learning process must evolve to recognize the dead as they walk amongst our memories and dreams, with the cause heightened in proportion to the needs satisfied in life.

Daily we walk amongst the living dead as friends become strangers, children become adults, and adults become children, severed from ties, seeking a means to adjust to constant change. Who can surface the victor with a similar fate awaiting us all – insect or man?

Our backs turned, we view the heavens rather than view the cold impassive repository of earth, our loss but a shroud of hidden regrets and intentions that never came to pass.

We question the inequities of birth, but insight reveals all men are slaves, held in bondage by the motivational directives of emotion. Lying subservient to defensive ploys, receiving the lash of inner guilt, the pang of grief, the horrors of frustration and depression as deployed in varying levels of dopamine and hormonal secretions, incarcerated within the confines of physical limitations, taunted by actual and imaginary pain: fears of extinction, devaluation.

Passive, we see our young torn from us by the villain time, blurring the exhilaration of birth – our memories scarred in counting the dead. Passive we see our youth torn from us by the villain time as we watch the aging atrocity developing in the mirror each day. Light me another killer fag, mix me another killer martini, oh so dry! Fortunately for me and depressing for survivors I will die sooner.
Life was such a quick thing – before I had the time to blink it was over, hardly enough time to investigate all the possibilities, the potential configurations that had lain before me.
…………….and yet:
Somewhere in the great void of universal space, serenity is approaching and I am standing here with my thumb out, in eager anticipation of adjusting modes scented in finality.

Emblazoned with a Latin plea for the ages: requiest in pace.

Thomas G. LaFaive

I am currently retired and live in Clinton Township, Michigan. I worked the majority of my life as a Quality Control Manager and Engineer in the Plastic Industry. I became interested in Find A Grave as a means to document my relatives lives, and to supplement the information my daughter Nicole collected through genealogical research. She was able to research our family history through approx 15 generations and 50,000 names.
Most of my records are relatives, or friends with the exception of some notables in Clinton Grove Cemetary where I frequently ride my bike.

My thoughts on death:
We pass into oblivion, lying as base elements to be used in the formulation of other entities. Sharing the electrons and protons and other atomic concentrations with whatever organic assemblage is likely to evolve.

We lie in dust, but continue on in memory for what we were, the actions we stumbled upon in our brief time. The undying elements counterpoint our quiet demise and memories flicker and fade as each day another passes. Attainment of an eternal union coupled with the superstitious elements of tradition: symbolic rituals, haggard drawn undertakers vested in black, granite slabs of identity, sonorous organ fugues, burning candles, ascending incense, the cold impersonal scalpel wielded in autopsy. Viewing death the mind rebels the loss of conditioning. A learning process must evolve to recognize the dead as they walk amongst our memories and dreams, with the cause heightened in proportion to the needs satisfied in life.

Daily we walk amongst the living dead as friends become strangers, children become adults, and adults become children, severed from ties, seeking a means to adjust to constant change. Who can surface the victor with a similar fate awaiting us all – insect or man?

Our backs turned, we view the heavens rather than view the cold impassive repository of earth, our loss but a shroud of hidden regrets and intentions that never came to pass.

We question the inequities of birth, but insight reveals all men are slaves, held in bondage by the motivational directives of emotion. Lying subservient to defensive ploys, receiving the lash of inner guilt, the pang of grief, the horrors of frustration and depression as deployed in varying levels of dopamine and hormonal secretions, incarcerated within the confines of physical limitations, taunted by actual and imaginary pain: fears of extinction, devaluation.

Passive, we see our young torn from us by the villain time, blurring the exhilaration of birth – our memories scarred in counting the dead. Passive we see our youth torn from us by the villain time as we watch the aging atrocity developing in the mirror each day. Light me another killer fag, mix me another killer martini, oh so dry! Fortunately for me and depressing for survivors I will die sooner.
Life was such a quick thing – before I had the time to blink it was over, hardly enough time to investigate all the possibilities, the potential configurations that had lain before me.
…………….and yet:
Somewhere in the great void of universal space, serenity is approaching and I am standing here with my thumb out, in eager anticipation of adjusting modes scented in finality.

Emblazoned with a Latin plea for the ages: requiest in pace.

Thomas G. LaFaive