A friend of this blog , and someone some of you know ( virtually ) died recently . I only received word recently and found it hard to believe . I was going to post this several days ago , but there was a contretemps on the blog and I did n't want to get that confused with this . Now that such issues are largely over , I feel able to post .

Question: Why is it so hard to believe that someone died ?
Answer: They were very close to them .They were sick for a long time .It was sudden .It was long and painful .