gob-stoppers

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Barry, the guy who more often does the news-wire job at work, sent me an email the other day. Not only had he been laid low by bronchitis, but there had been a death in the family -- someone he had been close to -- so he probably wouldn't be in this week. As the back-up wire guy, that means I will have to do a job I once loved and have learned to hate.

I wrote him back: "Death stoppers the mouth but not the tears."

Isn't it strange? -- When tragedy befalls anyone, the first thing anyone might seek to do is escape. Part of that escape seems to lie in explanation or some format that will ease the dis-ease. Let's talk about death ... as if that might actually compass the fact. It doesn't work, of course, but it diverts the attention.

Here is a format for tragedy.

Here is a format for delight.

Here is a format for comfort.

Here is a format for this moment.

And yet the moment cannot be escaped. It cannot be improved. It's just a fact, isn't it? Hard, easy, sad or joyful -- who can format such things with any hope of success? If you try to limit what cannot be limited, who is the fool?

That'd be me, I reckon.
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