Rest In Peace

Robin Williams.... Lauren Bacall ... Little Cuter is wondering who will be next.  "These things always seem to come in threes," she told SIR ... as I nodded agreement from the other end of the couch.

I could write about depression and addiction and the empty feeling in the pit of your stomach when there doesn't seem to be any escape.

I could write about a long life well lived and a peaceful death, leaving caring family behind.

I could, but I won't.  The interwebs are filled with mournful posts.  Cartoonists are drawing blue genies hugging princes.  There's not a lot left to say.

I'm feeling the losses and remembering my own.  G'ma, like Bacall, a sad but not tragic event.  CTG, like Robin Williams, gone too soon.  It's like ripping a bandaid off a not-quite-healed wound; the pain is close to the surface.

I mourn the fact that FlapJilly will never know any of them.  She'll never pass Robin Williams on the bike path in Tiburon.  She'll never encounter Lauren Bacall on 5th Avenue.  She and G'ma will never sit in the bleachers and watch Christina-Taylor pitch a perfect game. That's a lot of never in one day.

It's the finality that gets to me.

I still want to turn into the pod-castle and watch tv with my mom.  I liked the fantasy of hearing Betty Bacall's throaty voice on the other side of a booth in a Manhattan cafe.  As teens, The Twins played tennis with Robin Williams's mother; she and I stood next to one another as they drove by in the 8th grade graduation parade, waving with pride.  That's as close as I came to her son, but she was not stingy with stories that night.

I can't begin to list the times I miss Christina.

The January 8th Foundation is creating an oral history of those who were there that day.  My interview is scheduled and my anxiety is growing.  Talking about it makes it very real all over again.  It takes days and days and many tears before I can find, once again,  a comfortable place for the memories.

I'd rather let them all rest in peace.