DEAD PEOPLE

I have another great book to suggest.  I just read it, AGAIN yesterday, for my fourth time.  It's that important to me.  I've bought it for at least 6 people as gifts.  Plus I have 2 copies on hand, just in case I think of someone else, on the spur of the moment, who needs a copy.

It's by the brilliant Marion Winik.  I have read everything she has written, most, a couple of times.  And I can't wait for her to write something new so I can buy it, lock myself in the bedroom, and read for sleepless hours.

Google her if you don't know her.  God, I LOVE GOOGLE!  I mean what can't you find out on Google.  You can find...... oh, sorry.  Anyway.....

Marion Winik has had an amazing life - both happy, and, tragically sad.  I came to sort-of know her as a parent at our children's elementary school.  She lived in Austin for many years before moving away.

This book, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, dedicates a short chapter to each of the people/others in her life who have passed away, and left an unforgettable mark on her soul.

A warning... get a highlighter when you start the book.  You'll need it.  And a notepad.

I started my own list of "the dead" after I first read the book.  I'm working my way through writing a few words about each of them.  And I hope they're getting a laugh from what I write!!  If people would just stop dying for a little bit, PLEASE, then I could catch up!

I have a couple of entries on my list who I never actually knew, but felt I should have and desperately wish I had, and who have left an empty spot in my life for a few reasons.  Not like a Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa thing, but closer to home.

Anyway, NOT WANTING TO BE MORBID!!  The book is NOT like that.  But it certainly makes one think about how various, maybe plain, low-profile, everyday people in our lives have an impact on us, and maybe we don't see it at the time.  And then there are those people who you never really cared much about, but after they were gone, you missed them.  Those sorts of things......

And you will smile and laugh, too.