It was about four in the afternoon when I started leafing through the pages of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I was riding on the Victory Liner, headed for Pampanga. I recall an old woman sitting at my side with her grandchild on her lap. But that is what I could only remember on that day. The faces of the old woman, of the child were hazy for my memory. But not this book, not for this book. I was just too absorbed at the sadness that haunted me as I read through its pages. This was memory, a memory of melancholy, of melancholies.
The night was cold. It was Christmas of 2003 when John, Joan's husband and partner of forty years, died. At the same time, Quintana, Joan's daughter was gravely ill. The Year of Magical Thinking penned a very vivid, intimate account of Joan's grief. It was mourning incarnate.
In the book, Quintana seemed to recover. However, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39. The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her daughter's death.
"It's finished," Joan said.
Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
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