I invite you to join me in extending condolences to long-time reader and occasional commenter "Bob in Prague", whose wife Anna has passed away after a long and miserable battle.I've lost friends and relatives to long and miserable battles, and it's always tough to know what to say. They're fighting a horrible disease and half the time you're pulling for them to keep on going, and feeling like a heel because you know how badly they're suffering and you also know you're pulling for a selfish reason -- but you love 'em so much you can't stand the thought of missing them. And the other half of the time you hope they'll go soon, and that their suffering will finally be over, but you feel like a heel for that too.
No words are ever appropriate. And I guess that's why we have moments of silence.
I intend to observe such a moment on Monday morning at 9:20 am ET, as friends and relatives of Bob and his late wife join together in solidarity, to honor her life, and mourn her loss, and send her into eternity on the wings of song, as it were.
Anna's suffering is over. Her pain is finished. I wish I could say the same for my country.