Time Out

Peter and I spent much of the weekend in Rhinebeck at a beautiful wedding. The setting was glorious, overlooking the Hudson and the Catskills, the weather cool but sunny, the love between the bride and groom and among their families palpable, the rabbi's sermon personal and beautifully structured, and the music hot. But it took some effort to get into the mood, as on Friday and Saturday we were touched by two deaths near us.

A family friend, learned, quick-witted, Jesuit, who grew up in a fanatically anit-smoking family, died in excruciating pain from esophagial cancer. He was in his 50s.

A woman at church, a one-time student of Peter's, who had been rejoicing over these last few years in a mid-life marriage, learned that her husband, only 43, had died of a heart attach while riding the train.

I've had a life freakishly unmarred by death. Until I was near the end of high school, no one I knew died, and even then it was grandparents. Everyone else who has died in the meantime was somehow marginalized either by old age, or mental illness, or drugs. I don't know how that affected my brother or sister, but it gave me the false sense that you can know the shape of your life and live according to a plan.

That changed in December, when a friend--the friend who taught me how really to live--died with her husband and two young children in an unexplained small plane crash. She was 45, the children 10 and 11. Others in our community have lost friends and family even younger, with less drama. Now it seems as though we may be devastated by the flu soon, probably within the next three years. It's hard to know how to move forward without being in denial.

Pray for the souls of Andrew, Robert, Lillian, Paul, Shawn, Kitanna, and their families and friends.