I Saw a Woman Die Last Week Around 8:30 in the morning. I was buying a bagel in the café of the bookstore when the woman dropped, about 10 feet from me. She knocked the half-&-half off the table. There was a group of firemen having coffee and they jumped all over her—CPR, mouth-2-mouth. I didn’t recognize the woman at first, she was so pale. Her shoe was off her left foot, and her purse strap was still clutched in her hand. She had on dark underwear with green and red stripes. After about five minutes, I saw her gasp for air. Two very tough breaths. She was so pale. The paramedics arrived then and continued with the CPR and assisted breathing. They fitted her with an I.V., then all got together and lifted her onto the gurney. Her shoulder caught on the gurney pad and she sort of twisted a bit, but they lifted and straightened her out. Off they went. She was 48 years old. Yesterday in the very same store I was listening to music when this group of girls—two teenage girls and one small girl around 6 stopped near me and put on headphones. The six-year-old was listening to some pop song and dancing along, shaking her hips and springing down on her hands and bouncing up. Apparently she was doing a "cheer routine" of the older girls. Soon she had a crowd of about 6 shoppers smiling and laughing at the outrageous little girl doing such adult dance moves. Then, as she bends backwards onto her hands and starts into these pelvic thrusts toward the ceiling, the crowd hooting and laughing, the little girl’s mother walks around the corner and screams. She grabs up the little girl and tells her not to do that kind of thing in public ever again! Then, she turns to the crowd and says, "She’s only six! She’s only six!" It was funny. Every aspect of it. And I thought, wow, so much range to the human experience. I love it.