The Way Things Happen

This morning, a co-worker called me and said that his father-in-law had died in the night. He was 93. He asked if I would get a book from his office and return it to the library as it was due today. I said sure. The book is called Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier and I’m on Chapter Three. :) I’ll renew it in my name today. Frazier also wrote Cold Mountain (I didn’t read the book but I loved the movie). Sometimes things that I read sound very profound and meaningful to me, irregardless of the storyline. Meaning just on their own. Bold and clear statements. This has happened twice in the first 22 pages of Thirteen Moons. The first instance was when I read these words of Frazier which, although relevant to the story, made an impression on me as if the only words on the page:
Survive long enough and you get to a far point in life where nothing else of particular interest is going to happen. After that, if you don’t watch out, you can spend all your time tallying your losses and gains in endless narrative. All you love has fled or been taken away. Everything fallen from you except the possibility of jolting and unforewarned memory springing out of the dark, rushing over you with the velocity of heartbreak.