Life

It's a despondent, rainy Thursday afternoon in Brisbane and it's bucketing with rain as I drive through the afternoon traffic on my way home.

Today I spent the day at the hospital, holding my sister Fiona's hand through her fourth chemo shot.

Last night I spent the night at the Manpad.  (Yesterday, I took the family to see the show "The Illusionists".  It was my Christmas present to Al, the boys and Robyn, Harry's girlfriend.)

After a lovely night out, it made sense to stay overnight as I was planning to visit Fiona and the Hospital is less than 10 minutes away.

I arrive nearly on time and head straight to the gift shop.  It was Fiona's birthday last week but, owing to my disorganisation, I have left her present at home.

I buy her some hideously overpriced soap and a tiny, too-expensive trinket and head on up to the Ward.

In the elevator, I glance at a man who has a bandage across his face.  It seems he is missing a nose.

In the waiting room, I am about to text Fiona to see if she's in with her doctor when she waves from the back of the room.  She is with Xavier, her eldest boy. She seems in good spirits.

It is a different kind of day at the oncology ward this morning.  Every seat is taken and the waiting room is full to the rafters.  I guess  the hospital is struggling to catch up with its patients' needs after the extended Christmas holiday break.

After checking out her present, first up, Fiona is agog to see my new mastectomy scar as we haven't seen each other since my operation. I sneakily lower the top of my shirt so she can 'ooh' and 'ahh' at Dr Lambley's fine work.

As there is a great deal of time to be spent waiting to be called, Fiona and I find ourselves chatting to a lady called 'Danielle' who hooks into our conversation as we are discussing the state of my hair.

It turns out Danielle, aged 42, has terminal breast cancer as it has spread to her bones.  She was originally diagnosed at the age of 34 and had the full suite of treatments:  mastectomy with 25 lymph nodes removed, chemo, radiation, hormonal therapy.   Her cancer reappeared in the lymph gland in the area that has been cut and burned after seven years.  She has one boy aged 25.  Her husband is beside himself as his mother died quickly from ovarian cancer in 2001.

Over the course of our conversation, we learn about her drug regime, the fact she's in constant pain, the fact she has started falling asleep in the middle of things so is unable to work and unable to drive.

She looks perfectly fine to us.  You wouldn't know she was sick.  But this woman is DYING.

It's sobering of course and, as I keep saying, there are no guarantees for any of us - cancer or not - that tomorrow will come, that life will go on.

So you don't have to think too hard to imagine what this story does for our own morbid thoughts.  Danielle's story has graphically reminded Fiona and me of the harsh reality that breast cancer kills.  It's seven years since Danielle's story began and now she is fighting for her life.

While we sit, Fiona and I talk about my mood.  I have been given, lately to pondering the point of things.  What does it all mean?  I tell her that recently, my whole mindset has been geared toward questioning my relationship with the Universe.

One person after another is called and I watch the waiting room empty as the oncology people finally get into their rhythm.

As I sit listening to Danielle and chatting with my sister I look around.  There is an African couple.  There is an Asian lady.  There is a very fat woman.  There are people of all ages, sizes and backgrounds.

Cancer it seems, does not discriminate.  It is the great equalizer.

When we are finally called in and Fiona is seated, it is nearly three hours since I arrived but I am pleased to report that the infusions are over in a couple of hours.

Fiona panics a little before the cannular is injected so I make Xavier stroke her hand.  The only episode worth noting is the high pitched squeal Fiona emits when the cannular is inserted

There is also a little delay between the saline and the Adriomyacin as the nurse scurries off to attend to a patient emergency.  She returns to report somewhat matter-of-factly that a client has had a reaction to his drugs.

Fiona politely inquires after his wellbeing and then we are down to the hard core business of chemotherapy.

It's at this point that I start talking in earnest.  This is why I'm here you see:  as strategic distraction.  It is something I learned from my own Chemo Angels.

My poor sister.  While she is beautiful in her baldness, I can taste her fear.

The Adriomyacin done with, today for some reason the nurse decides to do the Cyclophosphamide second (it's usually last).

By this time,  Richard arrives and Xavier decides to go home as the poor lad has not slept at all the night before (he works at a night club).  The two guys go off to fetch Fio and me a bit to eat and a coffee with Fiona waving them off with some impatience.  They don't want to leave her but they are hungry.

While they are away, Fiona complains about a funny feeling in her nose.  (I used to get the heartburn, remember?).

In the meantime we chat furiously. As Fiona describes it, all of this is "frightening".  I don't know.  I'm not sure I'm frightened by much these days, I tell her.

Richard returns with sushi and a lukewarm coffee for me.  (There was a drama at the parking station he had to sort out for his son).

It's at this point that I realise that perhaps I am empathising a bit too much with my sister's plight as I too, start to feel a little nauseous.

That done it's onto the Taxotere today.  But I don't make it very end because, as usual, I must dash to ensure I'm not slugged an extra $7 at the parking station for overstaying the minimum.

On the way home, I stop by client's house in Cleveland to pick up some copy we're working on for a new website.

 I stop at McDonalds for a cheeseburger and a small Coke as I'm absolutely starving.  (Don't be judgemental.  These dirty food days are rare.  Today I just can't be bothered).

When I get home, I hop onto Facebook.

A Friend has contacted me to complain about something I'm supposed to have said that has created a problem in the family.  I shrug.  What's new.  I'm always putting my foot in it.

Ben complains he is hungry so I throw together a Thai Green Chicken curry.

Al comes home baring some goods he has picked up from Harvey Norman, using those vouchers he won in the art union.

Rain falls then eases.  The night is quiet.

Tonight at home, Fiona is lying in bed feeling as if she's been run over by the Express to Cleveland.

This week, Ethel lost her best friend Mary to bowel cancer (in the UK), and her next door neighbour, Brian died suddenly of a heart attack yesterday ( he was 77).

Friends have lost loved ones left, right and centre including: Corienne, whose brother passed away on Monday, Malc, whose sister Sue died this month, and Kate and Terry who have buried their husbands in the past few months.

Recently I've been writing the word 'condolences' too much I believe.

I think about Danielle, who eschewed more chemotherapy for hormonal injections to stave off the cancer that is now in her bones.  I wonder how she is feeling tonight, how deep are her prayers?

I think about all those people out in the world, celebrating their lives, nursing their grievances, parading their woes, arguing their case for causes and concerns.

And I wonder about what they are all striving for, hoping for, working for?

And then I think I know.

It's simple this.

Life.

A Death in the Family

On Sunday, March 11 at 12.15 am, after battling emphysema for several years, my beloved father-in-law, George passes away.

He is a man I truly loved and now, there seems to be a deep gap in my family: a gash.

Here is a picture of him with Ethel:

Al and Ethel are by George's bedside the morning he dies at the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, a place they have been travelling to and from for the past three weeks. It has been exhausting for both of them.

Afterwards they will report how it all transpired. How George was taken off the machines that helped him breathe, how they watched, distressed, as his heart then his blood pressure, all his vital signs, dropped suddenly then flatlined, and how quickly it seemed his body went cold.

Al is able to tell me how George was intermittently conscious, how he was able to say his goodbyes.

Neither can relive the experience without crying. It's awful.

I'm still trying to shake a cough. Still a little susceptible to bugs, I couldn't visit George in hospital. I had to rely on a kind of semaphore to let him know I was thinking of him.

It is some compensation that Ethel managed to read him my last blog, "Blessings", while he was partly conscious. I could console myself that through these words, I was by his bedside in a way, but it would be a small consolation.

As our hopes have been raised then shattered through his battle, Al and I have cried then recovered. It's been an emotional roller coaster that has culminated in this terrible sense of loss.

George's illness and death hits me harder than I anticipate.

On the day George goes, I go for a 6 km walk and I cry from beginning to end. It's like a cartoon cry, like Olive Oil cries when Brutus is a brute: big chunky tears that spew from my eyes.

All day I think about loss and losing, the cruelty of life, the way things we love or need are taken from us by a thousand, slow cuts.

That evening Al and I hold each other and sob.

This is all new to me: this thing that is grieving. It is a deep and debilitating feeling, a shredding from the inside.

Still, life goes on so the week passes. All week, we work on the funeral service. Al and Ethel sift through hundreds of old photographs. Ethel navigates the sea of formalities that come on the heels of such an event. I rally myself somehow to source some music and craft some readings for the service.

On Monday Al and Ethel go to see the funeral director. We will cremate George at the nearby crematorium at Mount Cotton and the plan is to spread his ashes most likely in the Bay where, for many years, he loved fishing and boating. There will be no hanging around there afterwards we're told as it seems that the Grim Reaper has been really working his scythe lately. (Bastard!)

Nicky rings and explains how even Peter, her usually stoic and quiet husband has been crying. She asks about the funeral arrangements and makes me laugh when she says she's so bad at funerals, she's thinking of hiring herself out as a professional mourner.

On Tuesday, Al speaks to the celebrant.

Friends are invited to the funeral and those who offer to bring something for the wake are not rebuffed. We are expecting at least 60 people to come to our home afterwards for refreshments: I don't have the energy to prepare everything myself.

That evening we go to the see the Nigerian-English comedian, Stephen K Amos, at the Brisbane Powerhouse. (I booked the tickets ages ago). I'm really glad because we both have a good laugh. It's much needed. Afterwards, we have a drink on the deck and again are somewhat melancholy.

On Wednesday, Al prepares his presentation - a production worthy of Spielberg and extremely time consuming.

Nicky rings again and we chat about George, a man who lived with such absolute integrity. I find myself saying how for such a quiet and unassuming figure, he made such an impression on people. I ponder the fact that George was a man who really lived by a strong belief in doing right, in everything and for everyone. He is a man who never cheated, never lied, was incorruptible. He worked hard without complaining and paid his own way every day of his life. He genuinely had few if any regrets.

In the afternoon we have an inspection, and Ethel comes early to help clean up. It's such a lot of work this business of selling a house but keeping busy helps us all.

I go for a 5 kilometre run with Spunky lagging behind for a change and in the evening, we go to Trivia and win.

On Thursday, Al finishes the artwork for the Order of Service and we send it off to a local printery. (It helps that he's a graphic designer.) A little later, we go to view the body which is held at the funeral director's head office at Mount Gravatt.

We are met by the funeral director who looks like a stereotype of an undertaker although I notice his bright yellow tie is crooked. (He is tall and thin, dressed in a dark suit. Why don't undertakers dress like Al Grasby? Come on! Would it hurt to wear some lairy stripes from time to time?).

We are directed into a tiny chapel where Pachelbel's Canon in D is playing softly. George is laid out in a coffin at the end of the aisle. He's dressed in his blazer and a navy tie. As soon as I see him, I burst into tears. Al cries. Ethel cries but, at the same time, she says he looks really good, so much better than he did in hospital. I notice he has red lips. His skin looks smooth. He looks like he is fast asleep.

Ethel places George's cricket cap (he was once selected to play County Cricket - he was a great bowler), a box of chocolates (George had a notorious love for dark chocolate especially) and a picture of Peanut, the dog that seemed to have been superglued to his side as long as they've had her. If the Egyptians could prepare for the after life in this way, why shouldn't we?

I am still crying out in the car park, and sniff all the way home with Ethel. Ethel says she is glad she went to see George at rest. It makes her feel better.

After I get home, I have to go to the shops to pick up some ingredients for the goodies I am baking for the wake. At the shops, I digress from my mission and browse through a dress shop.

While I am there, I exchange pleasantries with a lovely lady with quite a youthful face. She boldly (baldly?) asks me if I have 'Shaved for a Cure' (an annual fundraising initiative of the Leukaemia Foundation) or if I have gone through chemotherapy.

From there a conversation develops when she tells me she is curious because her four year old has also been through chemo for something called 'neuroblastoma'. I ask her if that's leukaemia and, almost sunnily, she basically says the prognosis is usually much worse. Her son's name is Oscar and I can't help saying: "Poor little mite, I'll pray for him". I mean, what else can I say?

Then I discover she is buying a new dress for a funeral tomorrow too - except it's the funeral for a two year old little girl.

Now, there you go. That puts things in perspective doesn't it?

In the evening, I bake some muffins and a cake and later, I go to my meeting with Karen's campaign team.

That night, Al stays up until 3.30 am finishing his presentation.

We wake on Friday, both feeling unrefreshed. After a week of rain and gloom I am surprised to find it is a lovely day with a blue sky and a nice breeze. George has done well.

After tidying the house, we all get ready. Ethel comes over and runs Ben through the poem I have written for him. All four of us are to speak at the funeral but I'm not sure how the boys will go. Al has cheated as his presentation includes his spoken tribute. (He has to do it this way as he is really shy of presentations. If you add his emotional state to the equation, it is unlikely he would have spoken at all. Besids, he can share the presentation with his relatives in the UK so it's a bonus.)

At 12.15 pm we set off for the Great Southern Garden of Rememberance at Mount Cotton for the service.

Pretty much as soon as we get there, guests start to arrive. They include Rob, Al's cousin, who is based in Sydney and several friends from Brisbane who have taken the morning or day off work to come and show their respects.

There are friends I haven't seen in ages, months, years! It's terrible that it takes a death in the family to bring people together.

All my closest friends are here or represented. My sister Fiona brings her whole family (which is awesome!).

My sister Nicky is crying even before the service begins. So is my mum.

In memory of George's love for chocolates, a plate of Cadburys are offered on as silver platter and I have to stop my youngest nephew, Raphy, from gorging himself before everyone has had one.

Al consults with the celebrant, Robyn and another representative from Metropolitan Funerals.

There are kisses, hugs.

At 1.00 pm, right on the schedule, Amazing Grace as sung by Judy Collins begins. The A Capella strains fill the small chapel at the end of which George's coffin rests. It's decorated with an arrangement by Ness which includes the fragrant frangipani grown by George.

Al's presentation is great - photos, film. It was worth the effort. There is a moment of reflection as we listen to 'Blue Moon' which was George's favourite tune that, I daresay, took him back to the days when he loved dancing.

Then it's Harry's turn to speak. He is crying and has to gather himself. I'm so proud of him. I can tell you from experience, there is nothing harder to do: to rally yourself in the face of grief. Harry reads a poem and then a personal tribute he has written. It's very healthy I think: for a boy to be able to grieve like this.

It's Ben's turn to read the poem I wrote for him but the child is sobbing. He can't do it. So Robyn reads the poem instead. (Al was right: Ben really IS like him.)

Finally it's my turn. I am surprisingly collected and can only assume that I have wept myself pretty much dry over the past few days. I cry a little through the service but all in all, I am doing well.

The service is completed in half an hour. As Lionel Richie sings "Goodbye", the curtain finally shuts on George Hope. It is at this point that I bawl.

We shuffle out of the church, wiping our eyes.

In the carpark, the next group of mourners has arrived so there is little time for farewells to those who aren't staying for the wake afterwards.

A long row of cars heads back to our place. It's hard to know how many ended up coming back. All I know is every last bottle of alcohol was drunk and every morsel that was prepared was eaten, barring some cake.

My friends are a great support, serving food, filling up glasses, helping with washing up. Aren't they wonderful?

There is conversation, laughter as we gather on the back deck. Guests come and go.

As the light leaves the sky, the breeze gathers. It's pleasant and I think of George, up in the sky.

The last of my guests do not leave until 8.30 pm. By this time, Al has conked out, fully clothed on top of our bed.

Rob and I clean up.

I am asleep by 9.00 pm I think. George has had a great send-off.

It was exactly three weeks yesterday, since I got out of hospital. With everything that has happened, some friends have commented that I must have 'run over a Chinaman' but I am quick to dispel that idea.

Really, I don't see myself as any luckier or unluckier than anyone else. We all have our bad patches and this just happens to be Al's and mine.

Sure, there have been some moments recently when I have felt a tiny bit overwhelmed, even a little negative. But overall, I can't say I think I'm that badly off.

What is life without a few knocks, eh? It's what gives us context.

This week 22 children were killed in a bus accident in the Swiss Alps.

This week, a two year old toddler ran onto a busy motorway and was skittled by two cars.

I think about the suffering these incidents have left behind.

I think about Oscar battling neuroblastoma at just four years of age.

Here is one thing this week has emphasised. Dying is easy. It's living that isn't for sissies.

You have to dig deep if you want to hang on.

George hung on to his life as long as he could. That's all any of us can do.

God

It's a Sunday morning and for the first time in decades, I go to Church and not because of a wedding for a funeral. Cue: Hallelujah Chorus.

It's an inevitable part of confronting a potentially life-threatening illness, I suppose, that I ponder the existence of God.

With 12 years of gruelling Catholic Convent education behind me, my religious roots run deep but like many of us, I am terribly lapsed.

When I enter the local Church,I find it a simple place with plastic chairs in lieu of the polished mahogany pews I remember, the entire proceedings projected onto a screen for ease of reading, hymnal included, and a few changes to what was once a familiar litany. I realise my Catholic lapse predates Powerpoint.

It's my mother and my sister Nicky who, upon first hearing my bad news, leapt immediately - and I mean, immediately! - to the suggestion that I should go back to church.

I wonder about the hypocrisy built into that notion: that hard times are ahead and now, God is needed.

If there is a God, will he judge me for that?

Now the notion of religion is a difficult one to discuss with anyone. Like politics, it generates strong emotions, unveils prejudices, creates friction. My husband, Al, is himself a diehard agnostic (despite years of Sunday School) and we've opted to give our children a non-denominational but Christian education. In short, we avoid the notion of "religion" and instead, opt for commitment to our own individual philosophies.

Still, I cannot deny that my blood is is part Catechist as much as it is part Darwinist. I adore science but I am not deaf to the siren song of that shapeless, nameless, unseen Greater Being - God, Universe, whatever.

My earliest experiences after all, were formed in a Catholic boarding school in Colombo where frankly, I saw more of the nuns than I did my own parents. They were my "Mothers" and "Sisters" in those old fashioned habits of the time who oversaw my studies, taught me piano, and forced me to eat my greens.

From the age of 5 to 9, much of my life therefore revolved around the church. We little kids had prayers on waking, prayers before meals, prayers before study, prayers before bed. Mass was attended EVERY morning. We were marched to church for every saint's day, for regular bi-weekly confessions, for benedictions and special masses and every nun who happened to bugger off into heaven.

Most despised were the infrequent but unforgettable gatherings at an outdoor grotto where I and my fellow little boarders were forced to pray to a statue of Mary covered in crow shit and set in a rock. We knelt on gravel and endured a litany - me, all the while, aware only of my 'jungies' - my knickers - which always rode up my bum crack when kneeling and gave me a kind of holy wedgie, thereby enhancing the discomfort of my devotions.

As a small child I remember our reverential collection of scapulas, holy medals and holy pictures - we would, literally, sprint to the back door of our Church as soon as we got them so the priest could bless them.

Communion and confirmation were huge events, in Ceylon deserving of special visits to a photographer's studio. Here I am at Age 8 on the day of my Holy Communion:

Confessions too were part of our 'daily bread'. Innocent kids forced to church once a fortnight vainly searching our brains for apparent sins.

My aunty, Ethel, who is visiting us from Sri Lanka right now tells a funny story. At Age 15 how she confessed to the sin of adultery, for want of some diversification from the usual suspects. The priest had asked her: "From the front-back or the back-back". Aunty is still, 60 years later, mortified by that story.

After boarding school, my family immigrated to Australia and my sisters and I were despatched to a smorgasbord of Catholic Schools around Brisbane - "Our Lady of Fatima", "Queen of Apostles", "St Cecilia's" and "Mt Carmel". Here, work routines meshed with religious protocols, every piece of work initialled at the corner of the page as follows: AMWDG - that's right: All My Work was Done For God. In other words, cheating was out of the question and there was always a Confession or two to equal the books.

High School at Loreto Convent was no different. The cavernous church at our sister school, Mt Carmel was the centre of a separate social life where I attended countless masses and the odd funeral or too, and my peers gathered for Youth Groups. Prayers, prayers, prayers.

Perhaps it was here that the foundations of the lapse that was to follow were embedded. As the funny Sri Lankan "brain", and despite my tiny coterie of a 'friends', I felt detached and separate from the other girls. I observed them with a scientific curiosity, and found many of them (not all!) vain, materialistic, sometimes cruel.

It seemed hypocritical to me, that on the one hand these girls could be openly mean - especially to those who were different, while they exercised their piety every Sunday in their expensive clothes.

I wondered about being a "Catholic".

When I left Loreto in Year 12, then, I think I was already disenchanted with the world of my Catholic girlhood and so, in my early adulthood it was no difficult step to flick sainthood for sin. Besides, it was so much more fun being bad than good!

Surely those were the halcyon days: remorseless Fornication; Alcohol; Cigarettes! And, oh bliss, Swearing! The joy of saying 'Shit', 'Fuck' and 'Arsehole' without fear of lightning strike was a new freedom that I relished and still do today :)

In the intervening years, of course, I've spared a moment for 'God'. I have spoken to Him only so much as He represents an unseen world of the spirits my own Sinhalese forbears acknowledged.

I am from a very superstitious culture after all. We believe in reincarnation. We believe in evil eyes and hexes. We believe in chanting for the sick.

We believe in the power of prayer. And we believe in Miracles. (My father was once hailed as a Buddhist hero for breaking a long drought, the rains perhaps coincidentally starting after a rainmaking ceremony when Dad foolishly offered to walk the coals. I still have a vivid memory of him sitting on a chair and nursing the seared soles of his feet!)

Now illness has me thinking about my connection to "God", "Spirits", "The Afterlife". Having been born in a multi-denominational country - Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics and Muslims all with their own lifelines to heaven - my views on this are fluid and open to suggestion.

I'm not sure who or what is true. Or even if it needs to be!

What I am sure of is this.

We live in such a material world where so much is made of physical fitness, with a passing nod to mental and emotional stamina.

But few will talk about that which is most necessary, I think, in making it through this life and that is 'spirituality'.

The word itself I think has been sullied by images of hairy-armpitted Buddha-loving dole bludgers who hang out at Byron Bay, burning incense, eking a living from their market stalls full of cheap but useless goods, and peddle a message of 'universal love' and hippiness.

For all I know, maybe these phoney Buddha lovers are what "spirituality" is all about. Maybe it is about meditation and wind chimes and dancing in the moonlight waving patchouli scented scarves?

Maybe it is a vegan diet and jangly bangles and mustard-coloured cheesecloth?

Certainly, there seems to be no universal idea of 'spirituality', the interpretation of which is as individual as DNA.

When in doubt, consult Wikipaedia which says: Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”

It would seem then that the pathways to a 'spiritual experience' are many.

It doesn't have to involve a hair shirt, a cat o'nine tails, and "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus played on repeat.

It doesn't have to involve torture.

If 'spirituality' is indeed an interpretation of a greater reality, then surely it doesn't have to be "God" or "Church" or any "Divinity". It is whatever puts you in that place where you are aware of a place, a person, an entity that is bigger than you, that is outside of you, that surrounds and envelopes you in the calm, certainty, centeredness and peace that strengthens you when you need it.

It may be a lit match, a candle, the torch App on your iPhone, a streetlamp or a spotlight, but whatever form it takes, spirituality is that light inside you that consoles you as you lie in bed, contemplating your own darkness.

It is in essence, an otherworldly reference point - something or someone you can turn to when you have been let down by everything/everyone else.

This is what spiritual counsellors mean in asking us to 'dig deep'. This is where we go, into the core of ourselves where we bear that nut, that seed of something that might allow for a version of "God".

This morning as I sat in the pew at the local Catholic Church, I recognised part of my own'spirituality' there.

But I also left realising that it is equally enmeshed in the belief system that has sustained me for most of my adult life: the belief that my spirit is within me, and my "God" or my "Universe" is not inside a building reciting a litany under the watchful eye of a priest.

In short, going to Church doesn't need to be a good thing or a bad thing. It should just feel like the right thing - and if it doesn't feel right to you, then you shouldn't need or have to do it.

Even if I choose to return to Church regularly, I still believe that my spirit is within me and it is there that I must look now that I think of the thing I can't stop thinking about: my mortality, that undertow, the idea of dying.

Sure I have my rosary beads and I have my Mother of Mary medal (thank you dearest stranger, Jacki!). The Catholic in me will not let these go because they give me comfort. They really do.

I visualise the Virgin Mary as I once honoured her as an innocent child, free of cynicism and open to the idea of heaven, not withstanding those damn 'jungies' and I am filled with a feeling that I am not alone.

And I know that the Spirit, God - whatever shape he or it may take - is ultimately and always with me. And he is with Kathy, Patty and Wendy who burned Candles at St John's Cathedral for me, my aunty Marie overseeing masses and novenas in Melbourne for me, with my friend, Nim, a Moslem, my friend Blossom, a Hindu, my cousin, Nedra, a Buddhist, who prays devoutly every morning, and even my dear friend Tom, a pagan with his 12 naked vestal virgins waiting in line to wrench whatever healing there can be from dancing by the light of a New Moon (obviously under Tom's tutelage).

With apologies to the many agnostics among my friends, I'm sorry, but I think we are all luckier for that.