Thank you. That there are people like you who are moved to reach out makes a very real difference. I've learned a lot and I hope I will be able to help others face death, theirs or a loved ones. We're all in this together!

Well, he didn't mean to. It's just turned into the longest layover ever.

We all get better and stronger as we go through life (well, almost all of us). Have a beautiful weekend!

Good for her! And yes, sometimes it is the exact right time. It can take some very different things to give someone escape velocity.

Yeah, it's a crazy series of sad things. It was a really intense few years.

It's insane. My father passed away a year and a half ago from lung cancer. We found out July 17 and he was dead by August 12. For his final week in intensive care, his insurance paid the hospital $350,000. What I experienced was that none of the doctors were willing to really level with my dad. You're presented with…

It was wrenching experience, he got sick when he was 7 and died at 13. It was a very long six years. But I feel honored to have been able to be present and witness the grace and strength of people. I learned a great deal about myself. I also learned a lot about dying in America. We do it very badly.

My godson had brain cancer and when we learned he had 6 months to a year left we held a benefit for him so he could spend his last time seeing Disneyland etc. and paying bills so his single mom (my best friend) didn't have to work so much and could spend more time with him. We raised something like 35K. It was really…

I knew you were kidding about cracker!

I don't know why, but I get even angrier at people who adopt children and treat them badly than people who give birth to a child and treat them this way. It just seems extra horrible. Children aren't vanity projects.

Gotchya, thank you for responding anyway. I was keeping myself informed of the most recent Holocaust scholarship until around 1998, when I felt like everything I was reading was going over the same ground without many new insights. Then I moved on to other uplifting topics until I started paying attention again in…

I tried that once. My cats did not appreciate it. But on the plus side if I need to clear the room of cats, now all I need to do is take out the vacuum.

Second or third viewing? I think it 5 seconds in. And then I think uncharitable thoughts about Maru's Mom, because obviously she has nothing in her life but two cats and a vacuum cleaner.

Also, what's the book on Belsen you're reading? Because of all the footage and the sheer massiveness of the humanitarian response, Belsen is one of my particular interests.

Oh I bet. But the jokes will be damned funny (even if we will all disavow knowledge at a later date).

I've thought about this a great deal as well (also how I would behave in an 'Ordinary German's' shoes). I think you've effectively captured how it would have been. I go round and round in my head because I know that I am a person who will fight to my dying breath for the downtrodden ... but would I be that way if I…

I am also a member of this odd club. Study the Holocaust extensively, wrote my thesis on Black Death, now delving into slavery and its impact on the current day. We could throw the best party.

I would never presume to say I have any idea what it's like to be black in America. However, there does seem to be a tipping point for white people where the veil is lifted from their eyes and suddenly you see the racism, and oh my lord it is everywhere. I wish there were some sort of vaccine we could give people that…

We noticed a huge difference in our marriage than some of our peers when things would get real. We would draw together, back to back against the world. But some of our friends would turn on each other or draw away. That's when we realized that seemingly happy marriages might just be untested!

As are we all! ;)