Fotos

This weekend, one of the most important people in my life died. Unexpectedly but expectedly. Far, far too young. She was unique and brilliant and courageous and treated with great cruetly by the cosmos. She fought against a diabolical disease all her adult life. And in the process she helped define my life. I was no one before I met her. And I can only hope that I can spend the rest of the time allowed to me in a way that will be worthy of her existence. I have just come back from a 48-hour round-trip to Europe to attend the funeral. Now, looking at This Photo I posted last week, I realize it was about her. It's not of her and it has nothing ostensibly to do with her. I wasn't thinking about her when I took it or when I posted it. She wasn't even a "water person." Air was her element. But still. . . it's about her. I realized it when I read what I wrote. "She did not swim. She did not drown." And this take even more so. She held on as the unstoppable weight of time and fate and inevitability rushed down on her like a waterfall, day after day, year after year. She held on long after most people would have let their fingers slip. And every minute she held on was a gift to the world. But even the strongest of us lose our grips eventually. We will all be washed away. Some of us will carry the tears of many in our wake. Some of us will purify the waters. Some will bring life to the earth.

No points please. This is just one of many tributes I am offering to her great and all too brief passage among us.