Sad News This Morning.

I learned something that made me sad this morning.  It was when I read this from Richard Mellon Scaife:

Nothing gives perspective to life so much as death.

Recently, doctors told me I have an untreatable form of cancer.

Some who dislike me may rejoice at this news. Naturally, I can't share their enthusiasm.

For the record, while I have spent a great deal of time over the past few years criticizing both the tone and the content of his paper in general and his editorial page in particular (and I reserve the right to continue to do so), I do NOT rejoice at the news of Mr. Scaife's failing health.

Having lost my father to cancer 7 years ago and my mother to a particularly unforgiving combination of diabetes and congestive heart failure just 3 months ago, death's sting can be particularly piercing to me these days.  Yes, it's a part of life and all that but it's almost always sad when we hear the news that the unavoidable punctuation to the sentence we'd almost always like to have extended by a few more phrases is closer than we'd like.

Very sad, this end that awaits us all.

Whoever he was and whatever he did, Richard Mellon Scaife is someone's partner, someone's friend and someone's father.  They'll all be mourning their loss in one way or another - and it's a loss, I imagine, they'll feel for a long time.  Rejoicing in that loss, rejoicing in the knowledge that people are hurting on that deep a level, is simply inhuman. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen; denn sie sollen getröstet werden.

To Mr. Scaife personally, I'll use this venue to say that I am sorry to hear the news of your untreatable cancer - everything else aside, no one deserves that.