There’s a time like this when I am missing my laptop.  If I have it still, I would like to sit here, on the deck and tap away my melancholy.  I would watch each black letter march across the screen, forming words and thoughts.  No matter.  I will make do with my pen scribbling across the page.  I’ll tap later.

I am sitting here in the late afternoon.  I am comforted by its warmth surrounding me. My Purple Wave petunias greet me each time I look up from the page.  I hear the children laughing from the daycare near by.  Sheba sits at my feet.  I sip my tea.  Traffic rumbles from the front street.  The neighbour’s voice rasps her words.  A jet flies overhead.  I am in the midst of life.

Some announcements can knock the socks off your feet.  They bring tears to your eyes.  I am still stunned and disturbed over this death announcement.  Why am I feeling like this? This business of life and death is well known to both of us.  And sad news is no stranger. Still, it is hard for me to accept.

I knew her when she was a young intern and I, a wet-behind-the-ears nurse.  I remember-ed an incident when I called a Code Blue.  She and the crash cart arrived at the same time. I could not remember if the patient lived or died.

I knew her, but not well at all.  I had not known that she was ill.  Oh, the speed of it, the speed of mortality, of bad news!  It was like a thunderbolt.  It left me vulnerable, unprotected and unprepared – unwilling to face it straight on.

I scribble and erase cross out, scribble some more.  My pen moves across the page.  Birds chirp back and forth.  Traffic is whooshing by on Preston Avenue.  The sun shines on.  I am finished my tea.