Okay, guys, now I'll just talk to myself, since I don't want to depress anyone else. Thank goodness all the plum wine is gone; now just send me your unwanted fruitcakes because I've gone totally nuts!
Speaking of which, where is John Galt these days? In a weird way he always cheered me up, and I sort of miss him. I hope he comes back.
While I was totally drowning in my feelings today, writing poetry, my daughter was with her girlfriend Keiko and her family, out on a typical San Francisco-style play date. They had all gone to choose a Christmas tree. I was startled when Briana came running up our steps before she was due home, ringing the doorbell and then telling me with alarm and agitation in her voice that when they got back to Keiko's house with the tree, all happy and warm and Christmasy, they got a telephone call from her grandmother that Keiko's grandfather had just died suddenly in her presence of a massive heart attack.
This is just very sad, and poignant as well to have happened in the middle of excited preparations for such a festive holiday. I spent the evening with Briana, trying to answer some of her questions about the intensity of life and death's sudden finality, in the passing of a man who was a caring and involved grandparent, who Briana had spent time with just three days ago.
All I could really tell her is to live every day just as joyfully and completely as she could, because none of us knows how long life is. To remember, in the words of John Lennon, "Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans."
Christine |
