When I Do Count the Clock That Shows the Tiime

Last week had it all. There was the satisfaction of delivering the settlement drafts to my favorite clients, signaling the end of their 3 year case, and insuring that they have the funds to hire the aids and assistants they need to make their lives easier, and there was the sadness of learning of the death of one of D1's classmates at 20, of cancer.

The latter put me in a rather blue mood for most of the week. I hear about and work with death and tragedy in my line of work, but when it hits close to home, like this young man, it really hits hard. His name was Paul, and he was from Coral Springs. Although D1 didn't know him beyond seeing his face at fraternity parties, she called after the memorial to say she loved me.

His family and friends had gathered at the football stadium to spread his ashes on the field. He was a rabid Gator fan. Wrong team, but he was clearly a young man after my own heart.

To further explore my ennui, I called Barry, the doctor with the world's worst and sometimes best job. He had just finished sending a dying boy off in a helicopter to Delray Hospital, where he would be transferred home to die on his favorite couch. The boy was 9, and had received a liver transplant some years before. Barry's team figured out the boy had a rare metabolic genetic condition which doomed him. The lover transplant had given him 2 more years. His dying wish was to ride in a helicopter. Barry got the company to donate a ride. The boy died hours after he arrived home.

In other words, Barry is truly the expert on human misery.

He told me that much of what we do is whistling past the graveyard --contemplatig and analyzing the dreaded, so keep it at bay from our own lives. He's right, of course.

Awful stuff happens all the time.

And, I'm going to deal with that fact the best way I know how, at least today. Wifey's out to lunch with some loquatious friends. D2 is going out to lunch with a friend. D1 is happily at UF, working on a French project and adoring some new boyfriend.

Some of MY boys are coming here in 2.5 hours to watch our Canes play Texas A and M. We will drink beer. We will eat pizza. We will celebrate this moment in our lives, to borrow the phrase from the old coffee commercial.

To borrow and mangle another line, this one from the classic movie "The Grand Hotel:" tragedies come and tragedies go. Nothing ever really happens.