2001-09-12 - 9:33 p.m.

Yet Another Loss

I am reeling here. Too much is happening at once.

Dreadful details are filtering in from New York - the damage and loss of life at the World Trade Center is much higher and more horrific than the media is letting on. I've hearing estimates that more than 30,000 people may have died. Very few people actually fled the tower before it collapsed.

And today I got another hit from an unexpected source.

I was at home, working on my chess column when the phone rang.

It was a lawyer from Connecticut, and she said that she had some bad news for me.

The minute she said "Connecticut" I knew what it was - I sat down heavily in a chair.

My Aunt Annsie died on Monday. Due to all the problems with communications, it took them this long to get in touch with me.

Annsie was my mother's only sibling. She is my last relative of that generation. In the last few months they have all died: my father, his sister Janis and now Annsie.

I have not mentioned her here before, because Annsie was a complicated person and a difficult subject. I was going to get to her eventually, but now that timetable has been moved up. And perhaps her story does not make yours truly look too good.

And, dammitall, I owed her a letter too.

I'll be telling her story in the next few days, I just need to get my head together.