In the last entry there, the former 'latest', the one in which I started out by saying that things end, I forgot to mention that people die.  Today it seems such an obvious omission.  Then, as always, it was prudent to ignore the fact. 

Human scale; what is that?  What does it mean when people talk about the effects of a disaster on a 'human scale'?  Well let me tell you, for I have had occasion to answer that today.  Tragedies of human scale take place, not in the vastness of space, nor across millennia-long spans of geologic time.  They are not monumental like, for example, the explosion of Mount St. Helens, or the destruction of hurricane Andrew, things which themselves did indeed create a multitude of tragedies all measurable within the limits of a human scale, but which are in their totality somewhat larger than we are capable of taking in all at once. 

A tragedy of human scale can begin with a tire slipping on wet pavement.  That might only scare you, or crumple a fender or two on a city street, but if it happens on a highway, it might precipitate a tragedy.  And say that that highway is the New Jersey Turnpike southbound, on a rainy Sunday night—last night for example.  And say that the car is being driven by a woman, alone, who is more than three quarters of the way to her home in Trenton.  Let's say that she had just spent the weekend with someone she loves, at the Newport Jazz Festival, which was just this weekend.  And say that that person had spoken to her on her cell phone at 3:00 PM to check on her progress through the bad weather, telling her to call him as soon as she got home. 

Let's say the steady light drizzle which had been letting up a bit since Connecticut, had for only just a minute, turned to downpour, on a stretch of road ahead.  She would have seen no change in weather, but the road as her car encountered it would suddenly have been ten times as wet, making her tires start to slip.  And let's say that when the car was sideways, still going sixty miles an hour, it hit a patch of road not quite so wet, where the tires didn't slide, any more. 

She never called.  She never got home.  The daughter she raised, alone—she was a strong woman—called instead.  The daughter was at the hospital, and not yet sure of all that might be wrong.  She was hysterical, calling Donnie on her mother's cell phone.  When Donnie heard that a state trooper had given Anita's phone to her daughter, he knew that it was bad. 

You meet someone, and over years you grow to love them.  You invest whole trainloads of love and trust and affection, more than you ever knew you had.  And then, snap!, like the switch of a light going out, it's gone.