Looking in on the World from the Outside

When, as in my case, you’re 89 and most of the people you’ve ever known, including your parents, all your aunts and uncles, your only sibling, the last two, save one, of your last remaining first cousins, and two of your closest friends have died, the last four within the past month, it can alter your perspective. Empathizing with them, you begin to feel as if you’re with them, as if you are looking in on the world from outside it, as if you were an explorer from an alien planet. It’s quite a heady feeling.