Death

And her day continues. Approximately 7000 thoughts per hour are zinging through her brain.

She has spent most of today evaluating fear. And she has realized something comforting: Billy died. Barry died. Gramma died. It's okay for her to die, too. It's not scary anymore. She isn't going to wake up in the night and lay awake imagining herself in a coffin, her body no longer working, sleeping forever, because she knows that life continues even after this body stops functioning. She knows this now because she has people who have stayed with her, who are telling her that there ARE purple butterflies and that someday she'll be ready to take her net and catch them, too.

But then there is a new fear taking shape. Suddenly she has realized that her own parents are old. That they might exit at any moment and that she is going to have to step up to the plate and where there were five Cowsills to step up to the plate, there is only one HER, and a brother who will fall to pieces. Now there is that fear...that she'll be totally alone to cope with that loss. The realization that we all die has finally hit home.

The realization that this roller coaster has only been shut down for a short time for repairs, has hit home, and she knows that at her age, she will be in the last car up the hill and screaming all the way down, over and over and over again.