Spring

Yesterday I met a woman who told me that on the day she was diagnosed with cancer she went home and took the pain pill they had given her to take after the biopsy. She lay down on the bed wondering how she was going to break the news to her husband. When she woke a state trooper was on her front step. She never had to tell her husband about the cancer.

One day a major network arranged to follow Nicholas Sparks around in a "Day in the Life of a Writer," production. As the evening was winding down and the camera crew was about to shut everything off he got a phone call. His father had passed away. It was filmed but as a courtesy to him they didn't broadcast this.

You can't put stuff like that in fiction and have people believe it is real.

I'm not obsessed with death. The lady at the bank was still grieving deeply for her husband which is why she told a perfect stranger this story. I happen to like to read memoirs and if you look at the theme in Nicholas Sparks's memoir you'll notice he contrasts extreme luck with extreme tragedy. This was but one of the many stories he told that followed that theme.