Imagery
Published 22 years, 1 week past
Every time I look at the image currently topping that topped zeldman.com for the past two weeks, I see Ruth lying in a West Palm Beach hospital room. Outside the sun shines brutally hot (by our pallid northern standards) in the last weekend of October and we know that we’ll never see her again. My brother-in-law and I each promise her a dance at the next family gathering, and the lie doesn’t even seem cruel to me. We are all certain that she’ll be dead soon, but the stubborn spark of hope and the thought that we can offer her a pleasant illusion to obscure the looming end seems like a blessing.
Atop her 10 November entry, Molly has a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright: “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.” I wonder if Ruth would have agreed. I wonder if I’ll agree, decades from now. For now, I keep hearing the last line from the movie Seven: “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.’ I agree with the second part.”