Dianne, I don't know how people get through multiple losses, except maybe to go numb for a while. Then thaw out a little at a time when they are better able to deal with it. It does help to have lots of people come to a service. When I was sixteen a girlfriend, Denise, died suddenly in a diabetic coma. No one knew she was diabetic. 3 people besides her grandparents came to the grave side service. I was one of them. Denise was probably the sweetest person I've ever met. Yet, her father had beaten her. That's why she was staying with her grandparents. She had had polio, so one arm just hung there. She taught me about smiles. She had a wonderful smile. The world was a lesser place without her.

Dotsie and Dianne, thank you for your words about my ability to express myself. Dotsie, since you mentioned me writing a book about reflections on sickness and death, I've been thinking about it, wondering what I could possibly add to the body of wonderful work that is already out there, written by people much more qualified than I. Then I got to thinking about the fact that I will be finished with the current novel I'm writing by Jan. 2006. After that I plan to start what I call my old lady story/novel. This would be an excellent book to incorporate insights on illness and death. Because if one lives to be very old, one can't avoid dealing with ongoing multiple losses. So that's what I will do. I prefer writing novels, because in novels one can give one's opinion, but it's not so in your face. I mean, the writer is not saying, this is the truth according me. The author is saying, here's a story, I hope you enjoy it.

As for the grief - I'm okay, I guess. I've been seeing my sister's face in my mind, not of her in her older years, but when she was a teenager. Her freckle-face smile, her wavy auburn hair with the pageboy haircut and short bangs. I've been thinking I will never get to take her Nashville and the Grand Old Opry like I wanted to do when my books become bestsellers. She so wanted to go someday. And I've been thinking that she and I will never be little old ladies together. I will probably live to be very old. A lot of people in my family do. I may have 30 to 40 years without her. My aunt Lottie lived 40 years without her older sister, Mabel, my grandmother. Oh, I understand why. Aunt Lottie took far better care of herself on all kinds of levels. But that meant she lived all those years without her older sister.

There is so much to learn on the many facets of this gem we call death. I think about how much each person teaches another with their life and their death. We teach each other, even when that was not our conscious intention. And I love learning it, I do. It makes me a nicer person. And in the long run, I so like what I have learned/am learning and who I have become. But I hate it, too, not hate in the sense that there is anyone or thing to despise, but hate in the sense of, I sure don't like the pain and the loss and the rearrangement of my life.

So how am I really? The loss is there, and it is more fodder for the writer in me. All in all, it is a good thing - which is what it was design to be or so it seems to me.

Vi