A certain peculiar symmetry...
defines a lot of the stuff in my life lately. A guy I knew in high school was killed (along with his sixteen year son and another boy) about a week and a half ago. Once I found out, I’ve folowed the funeral arrangements online. He was a parishioner at the Lutheran church of my youth. A church physically unable to hold a funeral to which 800 mourners are expected. (excluding me - I don’t think the van could make the trip...Oh, and my drivers’ license has been suspended. On a technicality.). I am not surprised that the service will take place in one of the town’s Catholic churches. It sort of reminds me of that Frost poem - 'Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.'. Where others may see sheer practicality, I see something more subtle. (Perhaps this is a good time - should there be one - to interject my favorite Big Chill line: “You'll never get this many people to come to my funeral. “ “I'll come... and I'll bring a date.” Hmmm. I know a bunch of priests. They can’t even bring ‘dates.’)

Reading the Milwaukee news, I’ve also noticed that the hospital in which Martha was born is closing. (I think I have some sort of bad effect on schools and hospitals. Every school I’ve attended has been turned into a condo. And more than one hospital that has cared for me has been shut down.)
N.B. Martha: the Milwaukee County mental health complex.. That’s....practical. I guess. I wonder what will happen to the glorious statue of St. Michael that was in the lobby. Waiting to be admitted the night Martha was born, I cooled my heels studying its comforting strength. When the day came that I purchased a St. Michael statue for our home, I picked one a lot like it.