John Caspell – RIP

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John with his new Burgmann scooter.

John with his new Burgmann scooter.

My cousin John Caspell died on the first of May.  He was 58 years old.  He was very intelligent, a great musician, and an avid motorcyclist.

John was riding his scooter through an intersection in Victoria on the 27th of April when he was T boned by a drunk driving an SUV who ran a red light.  He sustained a broken leg, a crushed foot and bruised kidneys, but nothing life threatening.  Doctors performed the operation to repair his foot yesterday and all seemed to go well.  He came out of the anesthetic with no problems, but grew dizzy while walking around.  And then he simply died.  A classic example of the operation was a success but the patient died.  The best guess is that a blood clot lodged in his brain killing him instantly.

In some ways this is the best sort of death.  No pain or suffering just gone.  It’s also the most unsettling.  One minute you’re here having a beer with your friends, the next God reaches his hand down and flicks you off like a switch.  No need to worry now about how you’ll support yourself in your old age, and the question of whether your were a good person or a bad one will have to be decided by somebody else.  The whistle has blown and you’re out of the pool.

This is the kind of event that makes you wonder what the point of worrying about anything is. It should teach us profound lessons, but it probably won’t.  And in the end we’ll all simply continue with our lives until our own time comes, because what else can you can do?

At least we know there’s music in heaven. Maybe God laid on a few motorcycles as well.

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Posted by: swampy | 05-03-2009 | 10:05 PM
Posted in: Uncategorized

  • Carrie La Porte
    This is a lovely and poignant commentary with just one small flaw. John most emphatically did NOT beleive in God, was an avowed atheist or, as he frequently asserted, "a secular humanist". How do I know this? Because I was the only wife that he ever had and he spoke frequently on that and related topics.John lived life to the fullest, found joy and wonderment in Nature and living things, and had a profound belief in reincarnation. It is far more likely that John is already watching motorcycles with avid interest in his next incarnation and tapping his infant toes in time to music. If John knew that people were consigning him to a heaven he did not believe in, his response would be to roll his eyes and say "GRONK!"
  • swamperfox
    Thanks for the comment, Carrie.

    I remember you speaking at John's memorial. You showed me a side of John
    that I had known nothing about until you spoke.

    Although John was my cousin, we didn't really know each other very well. We
    simply never got each other.

    Rest assured, that the stuff in the post about God and heaven were entirely
    metaphorical and no attempt to put forth John's views. I never heard him
    speak on the subject but I think I would have expected his opinions to be
    exactly as you describe them.
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