Occasionally

      Occasionally life decides to shock you. It's like that. It wants you to pay attention. So every now and then it throws a surprise at you. Sometimes those surprises are good. Sometimes they're bad.
      Today I was reading blogs at lunch. I have several that aren't my regular reads, but I still have them in my favorites, and I drop by from time to time.
      On one of them, in its latest entry, I noticed an odd reference to a loss. I scrolled down and I discovered the blogger's husband had been killed in a traffic accident in August. I was floored. Somehow I had missed those few posts where she talked about his death, the memorial service and what came after. I don't really know this person. We've been in the same chat room a few times at Forward Motion and exchanged a few "Howdys," but that's it. I know she writes. I know she's friendly with several people that I'm friendly with. How did I miss hearing about the accident? Was I that oblivious to what was going on? I wanted to tell her now how sorry I was to hear of her loss, but it's been several months. Maybe she doesn't want to be reminded of her pain. And after all, we don't know each other. I don't want to cause her any additional pain. I guess I can just remember her in my prayers.
      While wondering about that tragedy, I went to another blog. Mostly to see if it had been updated. The last time it had a new entry was in September. Still no new posts, but I noticed that the last post had several new comments. I had read the old ones before. I opened the comments page and scrolled down to the end to read that the blogger had passed away in November. He caught pneumonia, went into the hospital, and then picked up secondary infections while he was there. He slipped into a coma and never woke up. His blog will continue, I guess, unless Blogger finally decides to do away with it. Until then, his blog remains, a memorial of sorts in cyberspace, a remembrance of what he thought and wrote as ephemeral and fleeting as our lives are but still making an impact on those who surf by.
      If you're expecting a conclusion to this, some grand sweeping statement, sorry. I don't have one beyond the banal and obvious: Life is short. We never know what tomorrow will bring. Today is the first day of the rest of your life ...
      It just makes me think. Uncomfortable thoughts. The ones I push to the dark corners of my mind. I see them, but I steadfastly ignore them, concentrating on what I have to do to get through another day. But they're still lurking, their eyes gleaming yellow. Hear that faint noise? The click of tiny claws. The rustle of paper. Sometimes, just sometimes, when your mind is quiet, when you don't expect it, you feel their hot breath on the back of your neck.