It's been raining here all day. Strong, steady rain. Upstate South Carolina has been in a drought for several years now, but it's easing ... and the easing is beautiful and tender.
Life is so dynamic ... yet impermanent. All living beings are barreling toward death like a train with no brakes. We churn past beautiful countrysides, all on the same bittersweet ride. What can you or I do but ride along with everyone else?
I remember walking into a room at a Hospice center knowing that my mom had just recently died. I had left her for a few hours to go home for some sleep and a shower, fully expecting that she'd still be breathing when I returned. My mom was an unusual person, lazy but nonjudgmental, drunken but artistic. Her dead body shocked me. In front of several Hospice nurses, I cried out, "Oh, mom!" It was all I could say. Otherwise, I just cried. For her. For me. For us all. Have we not all cried this way?
Bring on the rain.
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About Me
- Jim Melvin
- Clemson, SC, United States
- I was born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla. I graduated from the University of South Florida (Tampa) in 1979 with a B.A. in Journalism. I now live in South Carolina near the Blue Ridge Mountains, a pleasant setting for writing, to say the least. I was an award-winning journalist at the St. Petersburg Times for twenty-five years and I currently work at the Charlotte Observer. I am married with five daughters.
The author
Jim Melvin, a veteran journalist, debuts as novelist.
2 comments:
I read something, somewhere...it might even be a famous quote. I'm sure I'm getting it wrong:
"This thing in your chest, it's not beating -- it's counting down."
Or something like that.
PS Love the blue-pills-for-the-fingers analogy. Ha!
Well, I was feeling melancholy, as you might have been able to guess. :)
And imagine how many more books there'd be if they had Viagra for writer's block!
Yes, the moment we're created, we start to die. In the cosmic sense, our lifetimes are no longer than the blink of an eye.
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