Carol

 April 5, 2023

Carol has died.  During the Hiram year and thereafter I thought of her as my best friend, and though the feeling wasn’t reciprocal, it was warm and lasting. D writes from Hiram: Her leaving was unexpected. Late Covid became pneumonia, as well as riling up long term rheumatoid arthritis. Her daughter Karen said yesterday that she went "peacefully but not passively." Al died 4 years ago (on Christmas Day) and she had become quite reclusive. I had known her for 63 years, taught with her, enjoyed her as a colleague and fellow troublemaker. It's strange to have entered the stage of oldness where we are lined up at the door just waiting for the call.

Wrote abundantly by the river, and watched a man playing with his dog. K appeared with a big, dark man I mistook as her husband, but whom she introduced as a new Board member. I got shot out of that organization as soon as New Year’s Day passed. It’s OK. It’s gone down a path of goofy, where I cannot follow. She congratulated me on a production I still don’t know that I have. 

Tony’s giant son mowed the yard today, with a woman I think is his mother, though she looks very young. They were going to creep away without being paid.