Interlude

I had a post ready to go tonight, thanking everyone for the nice comments wishing me well while I'm sick (which I still do), then some complaining about still being sick, rounding out with movie reviews of stupid shit I watched this weekend, but that will all have to wait. I just received a phone call from my ex-friend K's brother that their mother passed away last night after her valiant battle against breast cancer. The woman I wrote about recently here.

I never got the chance to see her one last time and for that I will be forever guilty. I don't really have a good excuse, although I've come up with about 20 of them, all sounding weak and stupid once they leave my lips. I could have and didn't, for whatever pathetic reasons I told myself, I didn't. I hope you can forgive me, Diane. I'm sorry.

She was a rare find in this world of mediocrity. A woman who so thoroughly effected me that I would not be the person I am today without knowing her. And for that I will be forever indebted. She was an example of what we should try to be, hope to be. What I will spend the rest of my life working to be.

I don't really feel like writing anything else so I'll borrow one of my favorite poems, modified to fit this situation. That will have to do.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


Diane, you will be missed.


(Picture taken 12/23/06. The last time I saw her.)