I spent so much time talking yesterday--blessedly, over coffee with Gretchen, then over the phone with Teresa, then another phone call with my sister, then via countless notes that I still haven't fully waded through. I did manage to do some editing around the edges, but the sorrow words were heavy. "That's not bad, though," said Tom, after he got home later in the afternoon. I was standing wanly in the kitchen, surely looking overwhelmed. But he was right. It's been more than not bad. It's been necessary. When a beloved writer dies, words are the mourning.

Last October, after Ray died, Tom and I and our boys knew that we were not officially family, but we were nonetheless treated by the real family as part of them, given our long and complex closeness. This time around there's a starker difference. I'm in no way family. But I know I do stand in a unique place: I was Baron's student who became his colleague and then the chosen heir of his program. He brought me up, and then he trusted me to carry on a sliver of his work. There was certainly a kind of parentalism involved, but also, in later years, there was a detachment. He didn't oversee me. He left me alone to find my own way of managing the conference. I wonder if that was difficult or easy.

Today I need to continue working my way through the emails. I need to clean the house. I need to get more editing done. My car is still in the shop, but supposedly it will be ready sometime today. I dearly hope I'll go out to write tonight. I've missed two weeks in a row and I'm lonely for my poets.

Ah, sorrow.