On a side note: I can't claim to be one of Regan's political fans, but
watching his draped casket come down the stairs with his widow waiting was
indeed a somber moment,, looking at Nancy standing in the rain under the
umbrella.

While watching the latter, I did encounter a curious errant thought that
passed through my mind while watching that casket being carried down the
steps with music playing; how, maybe at that same moment in some part of our
country there was a widow standing alone by a graveside with only herself
(all her friend's and family had passed on), the body of her spouse, a
couple of cemetery workers and the minister in attendance and there was no
fanfare or special music, yet her loss,, to her,,, was crushing and deeply
profound - but most people would never know of the loss of her lifelong
partner and would never hear her husband's name. Just the way it
is..........

There are too many such lonely people looking at caskets, at holes in the
ground. I'm not sure the presence of others nearby makes their grief less
profound, just more public.

Some of us are luckier than others, we have lovers and friends, and in this
forum at least many of us have felt the load on the wheels lighten as the wind
lifts us, and as John Gillespie Magee Jr. wrote, touched the face of God.

All of us know this poem, but from time to time it's worth rereading.

Here it is.

"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.