"That you are here, that life exists....that the powerful play 

goes on and you may contribute a verse."

Well it seems 2020 has turned me into one of those weepy middle-aged fraus who are perpetually hand-wringing over relatives and friends who are sick, dying, or deceased, but in the words of Hard Harry, SO BE IT.  

Two days ago I got word that Mr. Duane Verkamp--my favorite teacher from my beloved alma mater Marian Heights Academy--recently passed away from pneumonia. Fuck this fucking year. 

Me with Mr. Verkamp and his wife Maureen

at MHA Alumni Weekend, summer 2000.

In truth, Mr. Verkamp was so much more than just my favorite teacher, but it's near impossible to explain what that means to anyone who didn't know him. The only way to sort of explain it--to people from my generation, anyway--is to picture Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society, but like a mellow hippie Boomer version. And instead of a New England boys' prep school in the 1950s, the setting was an all-girls Catholic boarding school in rural Indiana in the late 1980s - early 1990s. (Also, we weren't sneaking into the woods at midnight to read poetry to each other; we were sneaking into the woods to smoke and/or make out with our townie boyfriends. But that's another story.)   

A few photos from my high school yearbook, 1990-91 (junior year)

Jeez, could they have made the faculty photos 

look any more like mug shots? 

In addition to teaching English, Mr. V was also my forensics coach.

(Forensics club was what most other high schools called debate team.)

And then there's me at 17. 

I was a naughty Catholic schoolgirl before it was cool.

There's really not much I am able to put into words at the moment; grief has made me its bitch. All I can say is that an amazing human being is gone and I'm heartbroken and I didn't picture it happening this way. In the words of that song, I always thought that I'd see him again. 

I think I've earned the right to post this:

"All hands on deck at dawn, sailing to sadder shores...."

On August 28th my brother-in-law Roger (my sister's husband) passed away from colon cancer at the age of 47. He was just diagnosed in June, so it took him pretty quickly. Despite the giant COVID tornado down here in Texas, I ended up flying to Indianapolis so I could be there for his wake and funeral. In the end I was glad I went. Sometimes you just gotta throw caution to the wind and go with your gut instinct. This was one of those times. 

I've been playing Echo and the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain (from the album of the same name) a lot over the past few months. I don't know if Ian McCulloch intended for it to be a mourning song, but it has that feel. It's melancholy without being maudlin, and it's brought me some comfort.  

I hope that better times are ahead, but I don't know. I do know that if a certain right-wing fascist and his cronies are voted out on November 3rd that it would at least give us all some hope. It wouldn't fix everything, but at this point nothing will.