Goodbye.

Sigh.

Let me get one thing out of the way: I am not cool with this whole "death" thing. No, no, no, not cool at all. My Aunt Susan died very suddenly this week, and needless to say, we were all shocked and heartbroken. All I want to do is type "BUT WHY" one hundred thousand times. I tend to think that this family deserves a free pass from death for awhile, but I know that's not the way things work. But how do they work?

Sigh.

I remember, right after my dad died, how I would sit and listen to my own breathing. Sometimes I'd do it for hours. In and out. It was a form of meditation, I guess. I remember how good that air felt in my lungs, and how lucky I felt, hearing my own heart beat. What I found was that, when you get down to the basic things -- your breathing, your heartbeat -- when you get down to the basic things and start viewing them as little miracles, everything else starts to seem like a miracle, too. I don't know where I'm going with this, really, and I don't know what to say. Maybe there isn't anything to say. But I've been thinking about my breathing more and more over the past few days, and I've been thinking about how lucky I was to know my Aunt Susan. We were and are very lucky.

Inhale, exhale. Keep going.

Whew.