More John Adams

I noticed that one of the opening scenes of the John Adams joint has Abigail teaching the boys Latin, and the sentence they happen to be reading is "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres." This phrase was the very first one my class (and, I would now presume, most Latin I classes) learned in Latin I, which I took in 8th grade. All Gaul is divided into three parts. This reminds me of that class; for some reason I was miles better than anyone at reading Latin. Oh, I'm sure I didn't get the best grade. I promise you during tests et al I came in a distant 8th or 9th out of a class of (I believe I recall) 9. "9" in Latin of course being "Spitzer-a,um, us." But I sure could read the shit. At the beginning of every class we'd have a reading of a few paragraphs wherein we'd all jump in and read what we could, peanut gallery style. The beginning of every morning would be like a wobbly-kneed colt getting up to walk for the first time; a few jump in here and there from around the room as our brains settled in. But after a minute or two I would find myself the only one reading as everyone else fell silent; myself rolling through each sentence, surprised at every turn that I was right. Start at the next sentence, roll on solo some more. I always felt like a barrel that was rolling down a hill as each word jumped into it's correct place in line to get out of my way. Nominative, genitive, something with a d (dative? datum? ohoh), accusative, and the rarely used ablative. I had ZERO distinction academically before or since (and didn't grade-wise in that class either, believe me) but somehow in a roomful of people who would prove much smarter than myself, most all of which went to better schools and more than one that became a lawyer, I could read that shit. Every rolling tumble through each paragraph was a surprise, but I did it better than anyone else. Period.

As a bookend to the series, the scene with Abigail dying (hell, also the one on the porch when I THOUGHT she was dying); wasn't that fucking gut-wrenching? 54 years together, then you lay by your wife's side begging with her and God. Was shocking to me; I guess I learned of death as sudden, young, and violent. Death comes as if hit by a meteor into a thousand pieces with no goodbyes, no bargaining, and certainly no reflection. Abigail's death was troubling to watch. I have no desire to ever witness such an ending, even while knowing it's counterpart opens no window of relief for the living.