We are never too far from the pain. Turn the corner, and we can never be sure that tragedy does not await us, or that that which gave us so many happy lifts will not let us descend into the sadness. This is life, what we must understand when we grow out of childhood — it happens to the best of us: growing up. Sometimes we make more of this living than making do, but there are times, too, when we must do our utmost to keep us from scraping our knuckles against the rails of our traveling. How contingent, our living and our livelihood, how makeshift, our happiness. It is this way from the most grandest, most hallowed of sentience, to the barest of the humanness in this weary world. I have thought this before: the barest of skeins divides the greatest of us from the least: the beggar and the king share more than they differ, and it will always be so. Time and chance happen to us all. Do what you can, when you are able; this, no more than this, can be expected of any of us.
