Monday, October 4, 2004:
We get a call at 5:30 AM. It’s my brother Scott; Andrea has died. He gives a poignant account of the last hours. At the hospital, she unconscious, he awaiting the inevitable. He holds her hand. He watches Blade Runner. Then he watches Apocalypse Now. What details! Are these the comforts left to him? We didn’t really participate in this second marriage of his. It is kind of him, without hesitation or restraint, to invite us, and me particularly, to participate in its end.
We make cards for Scott during Family Home Evening*. They are nice, and as usual they bear the marks of their authors’ personalities. Matt writes a roses-are-red poem. More his picture—a tombstone, and Andrea’s body, eyes closed, in the ground underneath, and a spirit suggested in the blued skies above. The kids are taken aback, and even suggest censorship. But youngsters, especially youngsters as sweet as this child, should speak, and we should listen, and the consequences should follow.