And now, with her cancer a fatal confirmation, Laura has gone home to leave this world on her own terms. In hours or days, she will be gone. I'm crying for a stranger tonight more than I've cried over many things in recent times.
This week has been hard on everyone. No one expected New Orleans to turn into Hell on Earth. No one expected so much death and destruction and despair. I've felt sick over it all, but I hadn't cried about it. But things have been mounting.

Hundreds of people are trampled in a terrifying panic on an Iraqi bridge. But that horror is eclipsed by Mother Nature.
New Orleans is a burning, toxic husk. Towns have vanished from the map. Hundreds have surely died. Thousands likely have died. And many more yet may die, unrescued or ill.
And in Los Angeles, a lovely young newlywed woman I've never met is about to die.
And now, I cry.
Each life has equal value, and the loss of each life is devastating to the survivors, whether it's war or a hurricane or insidious cancer that steals the life away.
And I feel flooded now. My personal, mental levee has been breached. And I'm crying for people I do not know.
Believe or don't in an afterlife. It's your choice. I'm not sure what I believe, personally.
If you don't believe, just remember all who are leaving our messed up planet this late summer. But if you believe in something beyond this world, pray for those who have passed away this week. And for those who will be seeking their wings in the coming days.
Tomorrow would have been my mother's 84th birthday. If there are Pearly Gates somewhere, I'm sure she's up there, probably with a clipboard, ready to assist new arrivals. (Once a Den Mother, always a Den Mother.)
Update: Laura, the lovely young woman in Los Angeles, died at 10:35 p.m. Sunday night. She passed away peacefully in her sleep.
Goodnight everyone.
2 comments:
It's like my tears are broken. There's just too much. I can't even cry; I can't even come close to thinking about all of it.
It has been an unprecedented "Summer of Loss" in my life... between suicide, cancer, large scale human slaughter and devastation... my tears flow together with yours and form with yet others, into a twisting torrent, a river of grief so powerful that it erodes at the banks of my soul.
May everyone find some measure of peace and solace.
SJL
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