Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.
A person's got to think, otherwise that person's no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he'd know he was making a thousand children laugh.
It was like that. Sometimes I'd go for a period--days or weeks--without feeling the full sweep of my loss, and then as unexpected as a thunderclap, the realization would rip the protective coating from my senses. Maybe that's the way it is with trick knees and aging griefs. Totally pain free one moment and absorbingly painful the next.
All I know is that growing up hurts too much. Growing down is what I'd really like to do. Be little enough again so it would be perfectly natural to be protected from the wind and the rain--and the world.
But don't go thinking that I'm critical of you, Anton, because really I'm not. Not a bit! It's just that you're not here. I'm alone and I'm frightened and you're not here. And you're not ever going to be here for me.
The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down. If I had to, I'd measure my progress in inches. One more inch I've swum--one less inch to swim. Once you know the secret, then nobody's river can bring you down.
Maybe...in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe...maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it's a little like life. I mean it's powerful going down and that doesn't even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.
Six years is plenty long enough to soothe the tearing anguish of...death, but maybe no amount of time is enough to soothe something that is no longer there. Something like an emptiness that can never be filled because it's only a bit of space carved out of air.
That's when I saw--cleary saw--that there was more than one mountain in my life. Some could be seen and some couldn't be, but just the same, they were all out there. All out there waiting for me.
My deception was believed because it was built on a foundation of truth ... Hitler's first layer is an undeniable truth, such as: The German workers are poor. The second layer is divided equally between flattery and truth: The German worker deserves to be prosperous. The third layer is fabrication: The Jews and the Communists and Jews have stolen what is rightfully yours.