Is death morbid?

Today I found out about another death in my family. Blood family, no but damn near close enough. I was in TJMaxx window shopping at all the terrible new styles that I can not seem to escape like all these shirts with sheer backs to them, like someone really wants to see my bra. My mother calls me, I answer, she says Teresa called..... I knew right then. Peter had passed away. Peter was a man my father looked up to and adored. When my father passed away, I adopted Peter as my "new" father. Peter and Teresa lived in Telluride Colorado and he was always telling stories. Need less to say, I balled my eyes out at TJMaxx and I rarely cry. I drove home, staring at the road like I was in another dimension searching for answers. I had just picked up some reading material at B&N on Existentialism, eager to read them, I got home and starred. I put my running shoes on and went for a 7.1 mile run. Running 1.5 miles in pouring rain. While I am running and my feet at beating against the water and my shoes are soaking and I can feel the padded socks pushing into my soles, I realize I am motivated.

Does death motivate me? Is it morbid to find death a means to enhance my own living standards?

I get home from my run and I stood outside for five minutes. Bare feet, rain falling, breathing and releasing. Pulling up a nice wicker chair with a few soft cushions by my front door with the screen door open, I drink my glass of wine and I sit to listen to the rain. What I had just embraced and escaped. A thought comes across my mind, I should photograph this moment that I am living in remembrance of Peter. Finding myself taking my digital camera out and playing with it, composing, moving, blurring, etc. I didnt feel like crying anymore, I felt like creating. Life is a gift and I will make of it the most I can. This death will be my motivator and I will study this sort of strength through this process of understanding and use of it. An end to a beginning. R.I.P. Peter Lauterbach, one of the greatest men I have known.