Franny and Zooey

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”-Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger died last week. I want to say something more than that but I didn’t know the man. As hard as it is for me to admit, he wasn’t Seymour or Holden, or even Zooey or Teddy. No author, no actual physical book has been as close to me as Franny and Zooey. I found what Franny had lost reading that book over many years. I found faith and hope and love and self-understanding. When life was hard I would hold my copy, not strong enough to read it, just hold it, keep it by me and hope that I would get through.

I did.

I don’t remember how wonderful life is nearly as often as I should, but sometimes, in little corners of life I remember that any day can be a perfect day for bananafish. So I get up, tuck Fanny and Zooey back under my pillow or on the shelf, depending on how much I have recovered, and get ready for whatever wonderful, frightening, lovely, horrid things await today.