“Do you believe in them yet?”
Well, do you? Do I? I tear these words loose from my not-so-recent past – indeed, 27 years ago – when my wife was dying of pancreatic cancer. I think they mean something, but God knows what. I plunked that question in my journal on May 3, 1998, three days before she died. I wrote: “That was Barbara’s mystical question to me at 6:45 a.m. Oh Lord – I’m down in the quiet dining room at 11 p.m. I just kissed my daughter goodnight. She’s upstairs in the bed with Barbara. Should I put my arms around her?” My daughter, Alison, was then 11 years old. She was about to lose her mother. These days never go away, of course, but recently – as the anniversary of her death rolls past – I’ve been feeling a glaring desire to return to that time of our lives. This is partly because of the global news. It’s full of war, poverty, starvation and death, as much now as ever. And all of it is abstract.
