We are following Bob's progress with anxiety and hope. What you-the family- are going through and still keeping your cool is totally amazing. You will be an example to us all when our time comes. Please give your mom the biggest hug..same to all of you....Our prayers are with you..from Washington and Istanbul....

Thank you, Brian.

In the Japanese culture, we say the same thing as he Turkish culture: the dead need to resolve their anger and sadness in order for them to move on to the next world. Where I work, water turns out randomly in our patients’ rooms, and we laugh and say that It is a ghost telling doctors and therapists how to do our jobs.

If I were ever to get side-tracked and decided to talk about ghosts, say, in his phonology class, he would probably give me that absent-response with that perfectly-timed pause. Just at the moment I realized I had said something stupid, he would turn back to his blackboard and continue talking about Great Vowel Movement. I miss his classes, and I miss his presence. That makes me want to continue praying for his recovery every day.

Audrey texted to tell me that you and Brian are doing an excellent job on posts. Indeed, yes. I do appreciate the color you are sharing. To think that ghosts are recycled! We are pulling for you all.

Maybe pray for those souls that had no one to pray for them? For those that did not or do not have a family? I just read a book, A Place to Stand, by Jimmy Santiago Baca, that is a memoir of his time before and during prison. He mentions in his memoir of the many maximum security inmates that the world has forgotten in the literal depths of the prisons.

Love to you all and strength during this time.
Carolyn