Garrison Keillor suffers brain seizure

[betsuni]

27. It's his best work.

Very funny but makes you weep. This hits too close to home:

"Arlene picked up her sister Irene and they drove up to the cemetery and sat in the car. June 10 is the anniversary of their mother's death. Lutherans don't ordinarily observe such days but the girls do because it would have pleased their mother, Mrs. Holm, so much. She was impossible to please when she was alive ... . The rain patted on the roof and ran down the windshield. Irene held a bunch of yellow and blue irises. 'Do you know that I still hear her sometimes -- I'm washing dishes or ironing, something simple, and I hear her say, 'Oh Irene you're doing that all wrong, here let me,' and my hands tighten on the dishcloth, I grab the iron. The simplest things. Putting toast in the toaster. Boiling an egg. 'Oh Irene, that's not how to do that, here I'll show you.' I still hear it. Never when I'm trying to do needlepoint, or make a souffle -- always when I'm pulling a weed, hanging a picture. 'Oh that's not straight, Irene, here. What's the matter with you? Oh you don't put on a pillowcase like that.' She began to sniffle. ... She cried and Arlene cried and they held hands, the rain streaming down the glass. And then Irene bounded out of the car and ran up on the grass and heaved the bouquet as far as she could toward their mother's grave. It hit the tree and fell apart in a shower of wet irises and dropped on the grass."