Deaths

The murdered wife of the famous defense lawyer is the kind of story I get obsessed with. I don't think I'd actually heard of Daniel Horowitz, though I read an article about the Susan Polk case a few weeks ago (that's one biased link, huh?). But mysterious, scary celebrity murders in the Bay Area...well, I just can't help it. I'm glad it wasn't the husband, though the punk kid neighbor thing is pretty frightening--not to mention getting hit in the head 39 times.

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As I was obsessively checking the San Francisco Chronicle for murder investigation updates, I of course had to read about the mother who obeyed the voices that told her to throw her three kids in the Bay. I don't spend a lot of time in the blogosphere these days, so I don't know if the maternal murder debates have already erupted, a la Andrea Yates. But it just seems so obvious to me that a woman who strips her kids, throws them in the water, stands there and waits for the police, and then tells the police that voices told her to do it deserves only our profound pity. Poor children; poor mother.

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My great aunt died yesterday afternoon. She was 95, the last of her generation. She was the youngest of four sisters, not the rich one or the smart one or the tough one, just the youngest one who married the kind of nerdy annoying guy, not the rich guy or the smart guy or the tough guy. But she and her husband outlived them all, and in the last decades of their lives, they were truly the patriarch and matriarch of the family, discovering their own magnanimous wisdom. Until my great uncle died last year, he kept a close watch on his senators and representatives, and one of the last things she said to me was "this damn war, there's nothing good about it." She knitted sweaters and made quilts for all the babies. They had three children, nine grandchildren, and I'm thinking maybe eleven great-grandchildren (Mom, how many kids does S have?). They called her G-g-ma (pronounced Gigi-ma). She was M and E's only great great aunt.

This summer she developed cancer of the pancreas and discovered that people loved her. She spent her last months at home near her daughter and got to see her youngest great grandson every week. Last month about 40 of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, grandnieces and nephews, and great-grandnieces and nephews came to a party for her. At the party she said that now that she'd seen us all, she was ready to go. She said that when she died, she would be the happiest dead person around.

She died yesterday afternoon, quietly, peacefully, with both her daughters by her side. When I told M and E this morning, M said that now she was the happiest dead person.

There is such a thing as a good death.