When my father died before his 70th birthday, a friend of mine wrote me a note including the thought, Do events like these not remind us of the antechamber nature of this life?

I understood him then, 20 years ago, as referring to the Christian idea of heaven that so comforted him but would not have been shared by my father and was of no hope to me. Even though at the time I was in a limbo of my own making, I couldn't apply his idea to my life. Recently I have spent days and even weeks in comfortable rooms waiting for my latest daughter to be cleared to leave by several legal or medical authorities. In a different sense than Rob intended, I feel that I understand the antechamber nature of my life and of human life more generally.