Death Watch

I've written before about my interest in obituaries, which I read as faithfully as any other part of the paper. This week two of them left me more saddened than usual.

There was Barbaro, of course, whose very public fight for survival seemed to captivate so many. While I was not as affected as those who seemed unusually -- even weirdly -- emotionally attached to an animal they had only seen on television, I found it hard not to feel a twinge of sadness once the battle was lost. There is nothing like a champion horse fighting for life, or a cat stuck in a hole, or some other animal story to focus our emotional attention in ways that starving babies and genocide stories never do. Maybe it is because the animals in our lives don't disappoint us. Or that they rely on us so much for everything. Or something else. I have no great insights here, but I have been thinking about all this recently as I happily clean out a cat box twice a day.

And then there was the sad news this morning that Molly Ivins died yesterday after a long battle with breast cancer. Her writing voice was like no other -- and she was funny. Of course, as she often acknowledged, since she wrote about Texas politics, she had the advantage of great material.

Rest in peace.