I heard from Sheila yesterday. Thats the second or third time shes made contact with me since she moved to Portland in October. She used to call me from work every day. Her mother is in very ill health; getting progressively worse. Morbidly obese, diabetic - nuff said. Her text message implored me to read Christopher Hitchens last book; written posthumously, compiled by his widow, it is called, Mortality. Hitchens is an atheist. An unapologetic atheist, and I have much to say about what I admire in his opinions on such subjects. This is the first book I have had any success in trying to read (because of my attention span) in half a dozen years. Let me just say that when I read this sentence - Im still in Chapter 1 - I started crying. Its so true; its so real. This is humanity. I am not afraid of it, for it is the truth of my existence. For that reason, I am angry at those who have impugned my character and my motives while shaming me for not believing a story that I cannot accept. It was Carl Sagan who first introduced the word cosmos into the popular lexicon. It means everything - all that ever was, now is, or ever could be. It is the word that describes the largest collection of what does exist that could ever need a word to describe it. And Hitchens says, (I think of my father, and his eight years of nonstop agony after his cancer surgeries) To the dumb question why me? the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:18:53 +0000
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