Vivian Stroud

…n the sofa. The nurse was there when I arrived, and took me into the kitchen and said, kindly and without softening it, that it will be this week. I read the chapter anyway. It was the one where they go out on the river before dawn to look for the lost child, and find him. I had forgotten that it was in there. I got…

…g, in the front room, with Hal and Annette and Vivian there. She was sixty-nine. I had been awake since four. I do not attach anything to that; I am often awake at four. R. came down and found me at the kitchen table and did not say anything. He put his hand on the back of my neck and left it there. Then he fed the…

- Funeral: Saturday the 29th, 11:00, Bethany Methodist. Lunch after, in their hall. - I speak after the second hymn. Under ten minutes; at home it runs 8 minutes 50. A second copy in Ray's pocket. - No flowers. Memorials go to the library at Stony Brook Elementary, for picture books. Our cheque is written. - Lemon bar…

…reat many of the people in it were between twenty-five and fifty and had once been eight years old in her library. I spoke for nine minutes. I had timed it at home, with R. holding the stopwatch from his tackle box. She told me to keep it under ten. What I said, in outline, so that I have it. That she was a librari…

…s about everything else, and then at the end about her. I fed Lorraine's starter on Saturday. Both my eyes are done now, the second on the 9th. Yesterday I read the hymn numbers on the board from the back pew, without glasses, for the first time since I was about forty.