Tragedy

We've just come back from a weekend with my parents. Therefore I am ill. This happened last time, and I worry it will happen every time from now on. My knee seizes up.
Nobody, just nobody prepares you for this final confrontation with aging, with death; it is taboo, rather like nobody tells girls about the menopause, or whole generations about economics. You are in the dark until the worst happens, and then you have to get on with it best you can. Whole rafts of possibly helpful information must be being held from us in favour of Sharon Osbourne's bad song choices- It's a conspiracy. And our bodies do not, unfortunately, secrete enzymes, such as the mothers of new born enjoy, to make them immune to the pain. You cannot be numbed to it, it is incredibly painful, and not just in the knee. You'd think there's some cruel malevolence at work; dad's blind, mum's going daft and my brother's got prostate cancer, terrific, but there isn't, this is what has always been and what will always be. That's human tragedy for you.
But then 'twas said there would be a great storm, and that the people should stay indoors, and that there was to be much commotion on the transportation system, and low, I could verily cancel my 9 o'clock on Lefebvre with good conscience. And then I began to see why Ancient Greek cosmology was so important to Le Corbusier, since I had time to indulge in my 44th book on him; 'Le Corbusier and Britain' and then Julie treated me to a donut, and all was very well indeed.