the last post...

No, I don't mean that this is the last post. It is a comment on the poem. I wrote that poem for Lucy Grealy, a wonderful friend and wondrous writer who died a few years ago. For some reason I can't stop thinking about Lucy the last few days. Ann Patchett, a dear friend of Lucy's, published TRUTH AND BEAUTY, a memoir about their friendship, and it was a book that was unbearably beautiful and plunged me into a deep dark depression last spring, one that consumed me and that I only pulled through with the help of my friend ML to whom I will always be grateful--for his strength, his kindness, his wisdom, and his heart--but Lucy reminds me that even when someone is gone they never really leave. This is why, the other morning, when I bolted awake with the sudden and surprisingly violent realization that it was almost eighteen years since my mother died (I don't know why this was the thing that jolted me awake, but it shook me completely), I was able to stand up, make my coffee, and go about the day. Why are some things so hard to let go of, even if you wish them to disappear? And why do things (people?) leave when you so desperately want them to stay?