On What it Means to be Alive.

Dear Friends and Throng of Readers, bear with me.

I am writing to you today in my capacity as a live person.

I have recently discovered I am fully committed to being alive. It somehow feels like a complete breakthrough, although I am not really aware of the reasons why. Yet. It'll come, I am sure. I'm just a little slow.

Four beings have died in the past six months. Four beings of light, four persons who were loved by many people. The first person passed away in September and it was a shock, but not unexpected. He left children, grand children, and great-grandchildren. The second person was not born in October. She left a huge gap and is still loved and thought of daily. She never got to smile or feel a kiss on her cheek. The third person took her life at the end of February and filled a church with people wanting to flap their arms like birds and thank her for the images she has left us of liberty. The fourth person went to join the first person on March 1st, wearing her skirt with birds on it and a rose on her lapel.

I now think back on each of these people and what they have given me and feel grateful for a lot of things I did not feel grateful for a couple of years ago. Someone recently told me the events we witness (somehow that does not feel like a strong enough term) before our forties shape us and make us the people we are for the rest of our lives.

So (and I fully endorse the cheesiness this entails) thank you to all the people in my life who are there. Friends who are near, friends who are too far, family who means the world to me, colleagues who have become friends, and people I've never seen who send me little angel medals in the mail. And also thank you to the people who are not there. I am going to thank you in person when the time is just right, because it is important. When you need me, I'm right here. And I've got a huge smile on my face and arms wide open.

Okay, I'm done now. I'll be back before the month is over this time, I promise.