The Winter of Our Discontent

When a death occurs in midwinter there is no distraction to ameliorate it. There is no “everything’s going to be alright” sun to bask in. Nothing is serious in the southern California equinox-sun, is it? Imagine a scene of the red carpet, Oscars night, with all the pretty people walking by. It’s 79 degrees, maybe 80. Can anything be wrong with the world?

Yet now the lifelessness and cold of winter only reinforces the truth of death and judgment. And my tribe is dying, that of writers. WFB, Updike, Neuhaus and now Dubruiel all in very short order. The flow of memorials and retrospectives and obituaries seems ceaseless.

Reading Amy’s notes on Facebook is heartbreaking. She has already lived a life replete with drama and movement: physical, intellectual and spiritual. There is no stasis. Open to grace, grace has moved her from birth to birth, from book to book, from Florida to Indiana to Alabama, from columnist to blogger to lecture circuit to would-be novelist. And now to the biggest change of all.

I feel it a high privilege to know her, even if weakly via the tenuous tie of the Internet. I feel the pleasure and exhilaration of being her contemporary as Nicholson Baker might say. She lives on the high-wire of grace and collects the charisma that those on the high-wire deservedly receive. Pray for her. And her family.