Back from hiatus

Sorry I haven't had an update in a month (!), but life keeps getting in the way.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas (or whatever it is you celebrate, or at least maybe some time off) and a Happy New Year. Mine was not bad, but not particularly good. It's been a rough month - Lou's mom passed away after a battle with lung cancer, the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean, and then, a couple days after Christmas, I went to a funeral to bury a friend.

Rhonda and I weren't real close to Gonzalo; she staffed his retreat, and for both of us our memories of him are from World Youth Day in 2000. It didn't really matter, when I read the news of his death at twenty-two the week before Christmas, I could only sit there at my desk, stunned. I remember driving home that evening, reminiscing on that summer in Europe four years ago, and trying to think when I had seen him last.

Gonzalo's untimely passing has had me thinking about my own mortality. This is the first time in my life someone I know my age or younger has died. It's too difficult to comprehend - how it happened, why it happened - and it has forced me to rethink what I have done with my time on this earth. I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon, but this just shows it's not my call.

The night I learned of his death Rhonda and I went to Oakridge to do some Christmas shopping. We ate something at the food court, and I went to fill up my drink, and they had Orange Fanta at the beverage bar. Aranciata Fanta. I thought of Gonzalo and swallowed the lump in my throat.