Strange

I don't mean to trivialize the awful events in Asia over the past week. However, I am struck by a strange coincidence between male members of my family in the hospital and natural disasters.

January 1999
My grandfather is in the hospital recovering from a quadruple bypass when an earthquake hits Columbia killing almost 2,000 people.

August 1999
My dad is in the hospital recovering from a double bypass when an earthquake hits Turkey killing around 17,000 people.

December 2003
My dad is in the hospital recovering from having one of his kidneys removed when an earthquake hits Iran killing around 26,000 people.

December 2004
My grandfather begins chemotherapy in the hospital as the tsunami strikes killing at least 150,000 people.

What the hell is going on here?

Then I started thinking about my other grandfather who died in April 1999. Over his last few days of life, the big story was the Columbine school shootings. This wasn't a natural disaster but the shootings did lead to a memorable morphine induced observation by my grandfather, "That is the problem with society today- all the kids are shacking up with each other."



I guess it wasn't the violent video games after all.