Not Again
Once more my girls are facing the funeral of a young friend. There have been so many in the past year or so that I have lost precise count. Only one died of natural causes. This young man has succumbed to an overdose of Vicodin and something else.

I had been under the impression that he was Catholic, but the funeral is at the local non-denominational church. Selfishly, I think, at least I am spared entering his name in the parish death register. When I enter the name of a man or woman who dies in the eighties or nineties - there have even been a few centenarians - I feel a whistful but fruitful sense of ‘closure’ (I really hate that term - why am I using it?) as I dot the last i and cross the last t, so to speak, on a life fully lived. When the age that I must enter is 17 or 19 or 20, there is no solace. I can’t look at the name and think, “My, what you must have seen and done in 87 years?” All I can see is sorrow - the shattered hearts of parents crushed and torn. I have heard their sobs through the closed living room door as they meet with the priest. There is nothing sadder.

Thank you God. Today my children are well. The most rehabbing anyone needs is a month at a Martha Stewart boot camp.
Today my children are alive. I am thankful. I am a most fortunate woman.