I mention that last part only because, this now being my newsletter (ha ha!), I simply chose to mention it. But in the above incident, I represent just one of hundreds, or maybe a thousand or two other people he is forever rescuing. You see? I keep falling into the present tense when speaking of Tad. I expect we all will for a long time yet. I must say, it’s unbelievable he’s dead. My husband perished of natural causes at age 71. (Is this too personal? I’ll leave that to my closest friends and second-readers to decide later). When my husband died, I felt I could not go on. George had provided such a definition of my life. I was suddenly a single-owner home with no history but his. It seemed so unfair, his perishing at 71. Then Tad died at a bit more than half George’s age, died of causes I cannot call natural (though nature, I reckon, contains them). And “unfair” took on a whole new kind of meaning. Fact is, I simply cannot believe Tad Worth is dead. You keep waiting for the voice, then you keep waiting for its echo. This must be what it’s like to lose your own child. Downtown, you see resemblances in perfect strangers glimpsed from behind. You actually go up to them. They turn around and their faces look hideous, only because the faces are not his. But you all know all this already.