Juanita Colburn Swindle.  My mother.  A sweeter, more understanding mother you could not have ordered up.  Luckiest luck of the draw of my goddamn life.

Juanita shed this mortal coil a few years back.  A few years before that, she gave me one of those angel coins that were a bit of a rage with Christians then, like a quarter melted down and quick-stamped with a pedestrian angel image.

Hey, it was silver, and my mother wanted me to have it.

I carried it in my pocket at all times.  While Juanita was still with us, after she went on home.

Then I lost the fucking thing during a drunken cocaine binge in mexico city.

A:  It hurt my heart that I lost that piece of silver.

B:  The manner in which I lost it hurt my heart more than losing it.

C:  Well, there you go.

So, you might be axing yourself about now, if you were out there at all (and let’s pretend you are), “Is Tim fucking dead now and forever or what, sweet Jesus!”

No, he ain’t fookin’ dead.  He fookin’ DISHEARTENED.  He melancholy and sad.