I'm back

I'm back from Ohio.

I will never forget the high school. This young man had graduated in 2007 from a school that happens to lie along the route between the church and the cemetery. When the funeral procession passed by, a stunning number of students and faculty stood silently on the curbside in the cold January wind, watching until the last car had passed.

I'm back, part 2

I've caught up on LJ as much as I'm going to. It's not much, but hey, it's some. :-)

In another two or three days I will know whether I caught what was going around. There were a couple of unhappy cases there. Rosemary, I hope you're starting to feel a bit better by now.

Beware of 31-minute flight connections. That's from landing to takeoff, not from the door of one gate to the waiting area of another. If I'd called for a wheelchair, or if I'd walked in a less painful manner, or perhaps even if I'd been seated in the rear half of the incoming aircraft, I would have slept in Denver last night.

Okay, one more sober note. The priest made a good point during the funeral Mass. What should dominate our thoughts "is not last Wednesday," he said, indicating the day of the death. "It's the eighteen years that went before last Wednesday." So true. Our deaths might be timely or un, quick or drawn-out, painful or peaceful -- but what matters more than that is what we choose to do with our lives.