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bereft, mourning 29 Natural Disaster Jacqueline Lapidus After you died the planet cracked and flooded, tourists swept away by tidal waves in Asia, the laughing city of New Orleans reduced to rubble and mud. Every newscast showed survivors stranded on rooftops waving crude signs begging for rescue. Such devastation swamped my own small grief, but the day your so-called friends gathered without me to bray about your wonderful life, I sat huddled on the sofa as the snow fell. I did not care at all about the refugees, or global warming. You, no doubt, would have got on a plane to report (though not to do) what could be done. You would have teased their stories out, black grannies coughing as they were carried from the boats, children without shoes. Yet their dead were no deader than mine as I cried for you, dear stubborn foolish man who dragged heavy furniture in from the porch and refused to ask for help. ...

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