Connie

sunny, fairly mild, am still in pajamas!

And plan to be all day! Barely moved from the bed. Watched Twister. Dreadful movie. I remembered it as being silly, but fun. Now it just seems ridiculous. Oh well. Watched the documentary on Pat Tillman last night. What an indictment. Very powerful. So I suppose Twister would pale.

Had some very sad news today. A friend I never met, but corresponded with has died. Connie Dean. She wrote a few months ago - in the autumn - that she wasn't feeling all that well and when it didn't get better she had a scan. Then she wrote that the doctor wanted to see her and Tom. Then she wrote that it didn't look good. Then the news. Pancreatic cancer.

We exchanged a few emails over the proceeding months, as she hoped for some treatments. But then learned she didn't qualify.

through it all her emails were hopeful and cheery. About wigs, and chemo, and grandchildren. About deciding where to put her energy.

But mostly they were about Tom. The man she loved and was about to leave.

I sent her the manuscript of A Trick of the Light to read, just after Christmas. If she wanted.

Tom wrote a week ago that Connie was no longer able to speak.

Last night he wrote to say she'd died.

Michael came to me in tears when he read Tom's short message. He remembers so well losing his first wife, Shelagh, to lung cancer. When he thought he'd die too, from sorrow and loneliness. He didn't die, of course. And got back up, and even opened his heart again.

I wrote to Tom. Tried not to be trite. To offer facile words. But perhaps to let him know we know what a remarkable woman has been lost.

Hope you're well - but I suspect among you some of you are facing your own difficult times. I hope, within that, you can find some peace. And even, like Connie, some laughter.