Category Archives: death

On [wearing] seat belts

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Just when you think that a debate is over, it comes back with a vengeance. I shouldn’t even have to write this note because I think the content is self-evident, but I would be wrong. Ever been wrong? I have. This summer I made my students buckle up on the bus in Spain because it’s the law–if the bus has seat belts, the riders must put them on or they might be fined, not the driver. Nevertheless, there are still older buses on the road in Spain that do not have seat belts and are not bound by the law because they were manufactured before the law was put into place and the bus companies are not required to upgrade their equipment. In a recent tragic accident seven people were thrown from a bus that went off of the road, and they were all killed. Two were also killed on the bus, but in general, those who stayed in their seats, lived. If those seven had had seat belts on, they would have at least had a chance at surviving the crash. Instead, they were thrown from the vehicle and killed. One would think that the lives of passengers would be more important than a few thousand Euro to install seat belts, or is it more complicated than that? Do we still not take seat belts seriously enough? I was required to use seat belts as a new driver learning how to drive. Yet, some thirty-five years later, I still read reports of people who are thrown from their vehicles and killed because they weren’t wearing their seat belt, which is both kooky and tragic at the same time because they don’t seem to understand simple physics–and I mean simple. Any object which is moving will continue to move in a straight line until it is acted upon by some other force. Ergo, if you traveling at sixty miles an hour and your vehicle stops, unless you are belted in, you will continue to move at sixty miles an hour, which means that you will be thrown through the windshield and into oblivion or the next life, which ever comes first. I find it both amusing and scary that people will brandish this argument against seat belts: I’m not going to let the state mandate my safety–if I don’t want to wear a seat belt, I won’t. At some point in their short lives, this attitude will be fatal. It’s just a question of when. Then there are the folks who say that they won’t buckle up because they might get caught underwater or in a car fire. Either of those two scenarios are so rare that these people will end up in the cemetery long before water or fire ever happen. Some people are just stupid and sloppy about putting on (or not putting on) their seat belts, and they die at some point as well. If you stay in your seat in the car, you have a great chance of living through most any accident that is not totally catastrophic. If the highway patrol have to search for your body in the weeds along the side of the road, well, forget it, there are no second chances in the game of life, mostly because it’s not a game. The real truth about seat belts? Buckle up and live. If the bus passengers had had on seat belts, they would have made it, most likely. In the meantime, there are lots of dangerous tour buses out there along with lots of dangerous and stupid unbuckled drivers. For Pete’s sake, buckle up, and even if you won’t do it for yourself, think of your family–they will most likely miss you when you are gone.

On [wearing] seat belts

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Just when you think that a debate is over, it comes back with a vengeance. I shouldn’t even have to write this note because I think the content is self-evident, but I would be wrong. Ever been wrong? I have. This summer I made my students buckle up on the bus in Spain because it’s the law–if the bus has seat belts, the riders must put them on or they might be fined, not the driver. Nevertheless, there are still older buses on the road in Spain that do not have seat belts and are not bound by the law because they were manufactured before the law was put into place and the bus companies are not required to upgrade their equipment. In a recent tragic accident seven people were thrown from a bus that went off of the road, and they were all killed. Two were also killed on the bus, but in general, those who stayed in their seats, lived. If those seven had had seat belts on, they would have at least had a chance at surviving the crash. Instead, they were thrown from the vehicle and killed. One would think that the lives of passengers would be more important than a few thousand Euro to install seat belts, or is it more complicated than that? Do we still not take seat belts seriously enough? I was required to use seat belts as a new driver learning how to drive. Yet, some thirty-five years later, I still read reports of people who are thrown from their vehicles and killed because they weren’t wearing their seat belt, which is both kooky and tragic at the same time because they don’t seem to understand simple physics–and I mean simple. Any object which is moving will continue to move in a straight line until it is acted upon by some other force. Ergo, if you traveling at sixty miles an hour and your vehicle stops, unless you are belted in, you will continue to move at sixty miles an hour, which means that you will be thrown through the windshield and into oblivion or the next life, which ever comes first. I find it both amusing and scary that people will brandish this argument against seat belts: I’m not going to let the state mandate my safety–if I don’t want to wear a seat belt, I won’t. At some point in their short lives, this attitude will be fatal. It’s just a question of when. Then there are the folks who say that they won’t buckle up because they might get caught underwater or in a car fire. Either of those two scenarios are so rare that these people will end up in the cemetery long before water or fire ever happen. Some people are just stupid and sloppy about putting on (or not putting on) their seat belts, and they die at some point as well. If you stay in your seat in the car, you have a great chance of living through most any accident that is not totally catastrophic. If the highway patrol have to search for your body in the weeds along the side of the road, well, forget it, there are no second chances in the game of life, mostly because it’s not a game. The real truth about seat belts? Buckle up and live. If the bus passengers had had on seat belts, they would have made it, most likely. In the meantime, there are lots of dangerous tour buses out there along with lots of dangerous and stupid unbuckled drivers. For Pete’s sake, buckle up, and even if you won’t do it for yourself, think of your family–they will most likely miss you when you are gone.

On a stormy night

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Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it’s a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don’t need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don’t need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect’s original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist’s sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person–depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On a stormy night

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Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it’s a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don’t need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don’t need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect’s original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist’s sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person–depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On the Terminator

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This is not a movie review or a commentary on the ex-governor of California. I think, though, that the Terminator as metaphor is extremely interesting in our post-post-modern consumer driven distopia. Some would say that the Terminator series is just an odd curiosity, super-violent, time-paradox wasteland, designed to distract and entertain, fleece the movie-going public of its hard-earned money. The Terminator series, at least the sequels, are pretty much that–exploitation, but at least the first movie has an interesting premiss about the way we interface with our machines. The success of human development–technology, innovation, progress–is primarily based on how we interact with our machines, how we make our machines better at what they do, and how these machines make our lives better. My personal story starts with analogue telephones and television, transistor radios and not much more. Cars were “analogue” as well, depending not on circuit boards for their time, but mechanical points and rotors. The world, however, driven by rampant capitalism, does not stand still and companies all over the world have fought to improve all of these gadgets. Analogue computers, which were fairly common in the sixties had minimal computing capacities because all analogue data must occupy physical space. In a world of punch cards and reels of magnetic tape, computers never could get very far in terms of speed or computing capacity. With the advent of digital storage, however, combined with miniaturization, computers and micro-computing chips have revolutionized everything about computers and their application in the real world. The hyper-computers of today little resemble the clunky Fortran processors of the seventies. In just one generation we have developed hand-held devices that even forty years ago were unimaginable. Cell phones are not just cell phones. They are complex computing devices that can link up with main frames around the planet to process every kind of information that exists. Now that miniaturization and ultra-fast processors have combined to create small super-computing devices, is the next step a generation of computers that are self-aware? Now, I have never had a computer talk back to me or to give me orders, but there is always a first time for everything. Several other writers, including Ray Bradbury, have already pondered a future in which the machines we use to do our work, take over, rebel, and start to eliminate us as pests. Distopian literature, apocalyptic literature, has always been popular with certain groups, especially in times of social stress and economic downturns as an expression of existential angst, but who doesn’t have a smart phone which is connected to the Web? Who doesn’t have a tablet connected to the Web. The idea of desk top computers, the huge innovation of the 80’s, is almost quaint today, and they are disappearing the way of the Dodo bird. Soon we will be just a mass of routers and wi-fi, wireless digital communication. We haven’t gotten to the Terminator yet, but we are tinkering around with robots, and as the processors become smaller and more efficient, so do the machines that they drive. I wouldn’t dream of warning anyone about the eminent take-over of the machines, but their already ubiquitous nature, their enormous capacity for change and innovation, and their extremely broad application into every area of our lives might suggest that the machines are already here and taken over a broad spectrum of our day-to-day activities. Something to think about, anyway. “It was software, in cyberspace.”

On the Terminator

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This is not a movie review or a commentary on the ex-governor of California. I think, though, that the Terminator as metaphor is extremely interesting in our post-post-modern consumer driven distopia. Some would say that the Terminator series is just an odd curiosity, super-violent, time-paradox wasteland, designed to distract and entertain, fleece the movie-going public of its hard-earned money. The Terminator series, at least the sequels, are pretty much that–exploitation, but at least the first movie has an interesting premiss about the way we interface with our machines. The success of human development–technology, innovation, progress–is primarily based on how we interact with our machines, how we make our machines better at what they do, and how these machines make our lives better. My personal story starts with analogue telephones and television, transistor radios and not much more. Cars were “analogue” as well, depending not on circuit boards for their time, but mechanical points and rotors. The world, however, driven by rampant capitalism, does not stand still and companies all over the world have fought to improve all of these gadgets. Analogue computers, which were fairly common in the sixties had minimal computing capacities because all analogue data must occupy physical space. In a world of punch cards and reels of magnetic tape, computers never could get very far in terms of speed or computing capacity. With the advent of digital storage, however, combined with miniaturization, computers and micro-computing chips have revolutionized everything about computers and their application in the real world. The hyper-computers of today little resemble the clunky Fortran processors of the seventies. In just one generation we have developed hand-held devices that even forty years ago were unimaginable. Cell phones are not just cell phones. They are complex computing devices that can link up with main frames around the planet to process every kind of information that exists. Now that miniaturization and ultra-fast processors have combined to create small super-computing devices, is the next step a generation of computers that are self-aware? Now, I have never had a computer talk back to me or to give me orders, but there is always a first time for everything. Several other writers, including Ray Bradbury, have already pondered a future in which the machines we use to do our work, take over, rebel, and start to eliminate us as pests. Distopian literature, apocalyptic literature, has always been popular with certain groups, especially in times of social stress and economic downturns as an expression of existential angst, but who doesn’t have a smart phone which is connected to the Web? Who doesn’t have a tablet connected to the Web. The idea of desk top computers, the huge innovation of the 80’s, is almost quaint today, and they are disappearing the way of the Dodo bird. Soon we will be just a mass of routers and wi-fi, wireless digital communication. We haven’t gotten to the Terminator yet, but we are tinkering around with robots, and as the processors become smaller and more efficient, so do the machines that they drive. I wouldn’t dream of warning anyone about the eminent take-over of the machines, but their already ubiquitous nature, their enormous capacity for change and innovation, and their extremely broad application into every area of our lives might suggest that the machines are already here and taken over a broad spectrum of our day-to-day activities. Something to think about, anyway. “It was software, in cyberspace.”

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

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I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

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I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

In Memoriam–Suzanna Nelson, 1990-2013

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As many of you may know (or not) my teaching assistant for the past three years, Suzanna Nelson, died out in San Diego last week. I wrote the following “planctus” to her, trying to figure out how I feel about her death at such a young age, being my student and friend. I have lost students before–we all have, but this one was special, fearless, intense, memorable. Your star burned so brightly, a supernova that dazzled. A flamboyant fashionista hipster, you even had a pair of glasses with no lenses. You handled a cell phone as if it were a sword, texting at the speed of light. Now your star has gone out and your death humbles and confuses me. For whatever forces brought you to Baylor, sheer chance, fate, predestination, coincidence, I will always be so grateful for your presence these four years. You arrived as a child, but there was always an older person behind those eyes who wanted to know things, who wanted to belong, who wanted to be loved, who wanted to make sense of a chaotic and cruel world. They were four years of steady tumult, of chaos, of conversations over coffee, text messages, and we talked about art,Shakespeare, horses, San Francisco, equal rights, women’s rights, philosophy, God, whatever happened to be on your mind. Your horses, you were so proud of your team, bringing me posters which now hang in my office, mute testimony to both your continuing presence and your profound absence. Just like a dad, I was so proud of your success. Your generosity was broad, kind, uncompromising. Your loyalty was unbending. You sometimes trusted my judgment, and I appreciated that–you didn’t trust very easily. You could be a royal pain in the ass, but I always forgave you for talking back or acting out because that was my job. You always questioned me when you thought I was wrong, and rightly so. We read so many things together–Augustine, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Petrarch, Wilde, Bradbury, Coelho. You brought your skepticism to bear. It was your way, but you listened. You let me know when I was defending the establishment, and that I had no right to do that. Your intellect was keen, sharp, reactive. You worried about each class of kids that you cared for–they are so young and naive, you always said. Will they ever learn? Now, you are gone,and we who are left cannot fathom what has happened. You graduated last May,and since neither you nor I are good with goodbyes, we said our fair-wells and just walked away, assuming that we would drift together again at some point. Our four-year collaboration as professor and student was over. You left Baylor, you left Waco, and you returned to California, and something went wrong. I will not try to ponder what that was. You are now beyond earthly speculation, so it doesn´t matter. I pray to God that when your crisis came and you were afraid and lonely and desperate, that God was with you. I pray also that God will grant peace to your family and friends in their time of sorrow and grief. I will remember you always. My tears are for myself, to be shed in private, but I am profoundly sad because I know you will never show up in my office door again. You are now beyond judgment, beyond any mortal bonds, beyond reproach, cares, worries or tears. Your struggle is over. Your Baylor family adored you, and whether you ever knew it or not, but I think you did, we deeply cared for you. In the end we are left with memories and our own sorrow. As one of the more famous characters from Spanish literature says while lamenting the death of his daughter, “¿porque me dexaste penado? ¿porque me dexaste triste e solo? in hac lachrimarum valle.”

In Memoriam–Suzanna Nelson, 1990-2013

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As many of you may know (or not) my teaching assistant for the past three years, Suzanna Nelson, died out in San Diego last week. I wrote the following “planctus” to her, trying to figure out how I feel about her death at such a young age, being my student and friend. I have lost students before–we all have, but this one was special, fearless, intense, memorable. Your star burned so brightly, a supernova that dazzled. A flamboyant fashionista hipster, you even had a pair of glasses with no lenses. You handled a cell phone as if it were a sword, texting at the speed of light. Now your star has gone out and your death humbles and confuses me. For whatever forces brought you to Baylor, sheer chance, fate, predestination, coincidence, I will always be so grateful for your presence these four years. You arrived as a child, but there was always an older person behind those eyes who wanted to know things, who wanted to belong, who wanted to be loved, who wanted to make sense of a chaotic and cruel world. They were four years of steady tumult, of chaos, of conversations over coffee, text messages, and we talked about art,Shakespeare, horses, San Francisco, equal rights, women’s rights, philosophy, God, whatever happened to be on your mind. Your horses, you were so proud of your team, bringing me posters which now hang in my office, mute testimony to both your continuing presence and your profound absence. Just like a dad, I was so proud of your success. Your generosity was broad, kind, uncompromising. Your loyalty was unbending. You sometimes trusted my judgment, and I appreciated that–you didn’t trust very easily. You could be a royal pain in the ass, but I always forgave you for talking back or acting out because that was my job. You always questioned me when you thought I was wrong, and rightly so. We read so many things together–Augustine, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Petrarch, Wilde, Bradbury, Coelho. You brought your skepticism to bear. It was your way, but you listened. You let me know when I was defending the establishment, and that I had no right to do that. Your intellect was keen, sharp, reactive. You worried about each class of kids that you cared for–they are so young and naive, you always said. Will they ever learn? Now, you are gone,and we who are left cannot fathom what has happened. You graduated last May,and since neither you nor I are good with goodbyes, we said our fair-wells and just walked away, assuming that we would drift together again at some point. Our four-year collaboration as professor and student was over. You left Baylor, you left Waco, and you returned to California, and something went wrong. I will not try to ponder what that was. You are now beyond earthly speculation, so it doesn´t matter. I pray to God that when your crisis came and you were afraid and lonely and desperate, that God was with you. I pray also that God will grant peace to your family and friends in their time of sorrow and grief. I will remember you always. My tears are for myself, to be shed in private, but I am profoundly sad because I know you will never show up in my office door again. You are now beyond judgment, beyond any mortal bonds, beyond reproach, cares, worries or tears. Your struggle is over. Your Baylor family adored you, and whether you ever knew it or not, but I think you did, we deeply cared for you. In the end we are left with memories and our own sorrow. As one of the more famous characters from Spanish literature says while lamenting the death of his daughter, “¿porque me dexaste penado? ¿porque me dexaste triste e solo? in hac lachrimarum valle.”