Bon voyaging

Good friend off to the UK with her family; we had a good session at the gym. Off to the farmers' market, where I had a heartbreaking experience: I ran into a former fellow co-op preschool parent, who asked after our son. He and her daughter had been playmates and buddies long ago. She looked at me with a painful expression, and told me their daughter had died of a brain tumor in 2001. I gasped and started to cry, at which point she apologized for telling me so abruptly. Good grief, as if she had caused me pain; I got it together and hugged her, trying to say appropriate things. We had been rather formal acquaintances years ago, but she seemed utterly open and so sad. I don't think anyone could get over such a death, of a too young and only child, just getting out into the world.