I come from a family of four: my mother, Margaret Isabel Young (née Peace), my father, Dr. Robert Goddard Young, my brother, William Robert Stuart Young, who was six years my junior, and myself, John Paul Young. My brother's untimely death in July 1996 occurred just as I was about to turn forty. For the next six years, I took on the role of primary caregiver for my parents. The grim discovery of my younger brother's body in his apartment shocked me profoundly. The officer on duty, "Bart," suggested at the scene that by identifying my brother's body for the Coroner, I could shield our elderly parents from the anguish of seeing their son in such a condition. In clinical shock, I waited for the Coroner, a compassionate woman who arrived with the others. She understood the emotional impact of identifying a deceased relative, particularly given the condition of his body after two days. I wasn't allowed to see my brother's body until the Coroner deemed it approp...
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"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen."
~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
But you are the angel of death
And I am the dead man's son
He was buried like a mole in a fox-hole
And everyone's still on the run
And who is the master of foxhounds?
And who says the hunt has begun?
And who calls the tune in the courtroom?
And who beats the funeral drum?
The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime
You shuffle in the gloom of the sick room
And talk to yourself as you die
~ Roger Waters (Free Four).
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
~ W. Shakespeare.