Kablammo!

Two weeks ago I felt happy to be alive, at peace with the world, and generally more content—with life in general, but also with myself—than I had in a long time. The proximate cause for this, of course, was reading Jailbird and God Bless You, Mr Rosewater back-to-back and essentially uninterrupted. In other words, I had Kurt Vonnegut to thank, and I was quite appreciative.

So it was that, a few days later, I decided not to mourn his death.

Was it sad? Of course. The death of an inspiration, a hero, an artist cannot but be a sad occasion. But Vonnegut’s is a legacy to be celebrated and, after all, he is up in heaven now.

As it is, I was lucky enough to be left with the following:

Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail.

and

God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

I think he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

So while I wasn’t upset to learn of his death, what did upset me was finding out he spent the last few weeks of his life suffering from severe and fatal head trauma.