The writer Tim Pratt has posted about his son River’s upcoming surgery. My thoughts are with them. How horrible for parents to go through something like this so soon in their child’s life (or ever, obviously). The odds in this case are good but meanwhile the strain is unimaginable to me. One weeps at how many parents so often must be so brave for their little ones.
This put me in mind of a book by Dean Koontz — not in a macabre way, and certainly not wishing on River any parallel of that experience, except for any transcendence which may come his way, whether through this or other events.
How sad…a girl on my message board’s daughter just had surgery for this a few months ago and by all accounts is doing really well. I had no idea it was so common in babies. 🙁 Thinking of River.
So it’s all about eyes this week. A quick look at the storyline behind Koontz’ book reminded me of Jeff Healey’s recent death on Sunday. He had his eyes removed when he was just a baby (retinal cancer), and became a child prodigy. He was an amazing guitarist and a trumpet player and a radio host who loved to explain the world of jazz using his own music collection. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see him play live, but by all accounts he was brilliant.
I saw the news about Jeff Buckley. He was indeed an outstanding talent. I never saw him live but have seen video of him playing guitar. From what I recall his method of playing with the guitar on his lap and his fret hand over the fretboard, as opposed to the normal posture, came from experimentation and trying to recreate on his own the music he heard, as he was never ‘shown’ how to hold a guitar or how to fret the strings.
Why did I write Buckley instead of Healey? My eyes have betrayed me.