BRIGHT LIGHTS — Allison, Tara and Lauren at Allison's 2006 high school graduation. GrandPa Reno was in attendance. Allison went on to earn a four-year degree from the prestigious Academy of Arts in San Francisco, a B.A. in photography. Lauren became a world-class fashion designer while still in high school.

Andrew Dad: The best analogy I can think of so far? This is like having a limb amputated without anesthesia. Literally ripped from the body. Afterwards, you see where the limb should be and the mind still gives you the sensation and feeling as if the limb is still there. Grandpa Reno: When his wife died a year or so ago, comedian/actor Patton Oswalt [Agents of SHIELD] finally gave me the words for what I went thru when your mother Betty died and what you endure now: a "numb slog." The words themselves are so clumsy, ugly and difficult to say that I have trouble remembering them. Great if dark anti-poetry, indeed. Now I can finally feel a bit of what your mom felt on that awful 1978 Saturday when we were informed that your sister Debbie was lost. Betty exhaled a soul-wrenching sigh, then "She was so perfect!" Like Zorba, it was a simultaneous complaint and question to God. Gotta hunch you've been there.

Jake, old man. Change of plans.

I had intended this entire screed to memorialize your enlightened journalistic cantankerousness, including a potshot about Civil War re-enactors stepping on this weekend's Virginia City Labor Day weekend.

Then again, your adios soirée this Saturday steps on their veneration of the contemptible Confederacy, proving that you still retain power even after your passing.

I know you didn't much believe in this kind of stuff, but if the electricity that was once Professor Highton remains available, I have some work for you, dear friend.

A beautiful young lady named Tara Danielle Donlevy died last Saturday at a Phoenix, Ariz., hospital.

She was ironically admitted on my birthday last month.

She was recovering when complications of heart surgery called her number at 21.

As father to three daughters, you could identify with what her parents now endure.

Please look after their girl.

Forever FantasyLand

The grief of Zorba the Greek rings heavy in my head.

My first and last wife, Betty, made me a grandfather the day we married.

I saw her thru the death of her firstborn at age 19, a victim of rural Nevada medical malpractice after an auto accident.

When Tara was six or seven, Betty's number two son, another Andrew, took his family to his sister Debbie's Carson City grave.

When they returned to our house, little Tara asked her grandma to "bring her up. If I can hold her I can bring her back to life."

Wow.

Her mother Tiffany said "she's always been like that."

Based on that sliver of a moment, I always thought she'd grow up to be a doctor or similar healer.

Perhaps she was in some fashion.

Alas, she could not heal herself.

You would have liked her, Jake.

And so here we remain.

As Nikos Kazantzakis channeled Zorba: "When my little boy Dimitri died...and everybody was crying...me, I got up and I danced.

"They said, 'Zorba is mad.' But it was the dancing — only the dancing that stopped the pain."

So maybe we should all dance as best we can, when we can, every chance we can.

Even should it revive old aches and pains, it will remind us that we are alive, that we have lived well, and once felt shining reflections of love.

RSVP for the remembrance

THE PRICE OF PASSAGE. My number 2 son Andrew Donlevy thanks all of those who have contributed to Tara's GoFundMe page to help with her final expenses.

You may also mail checks payable to Andrew Donlevy, 1480 E. Pecos Rd. #3025, Gilbert AZ 85295.

Stay tuned for more info as it arrives.

Both Andrews thank you so very much.

Fade to black "She wrapped my arm around her and wanted a picture of us. She also didn't want me to leave. She was scared."

 

SATURDAY SEPT. 2: Matriculate to an appreciation and adios for UNR journalism legend, eternal Sparks Tribune columnist and Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames Laureate Jake Highton (1931-2017).

It will appropriately happen for the pro-union professor on Labor Day weekend at 3:00 p.m. September 2 in the UNR library rotunda. (Bureaucrats call it a "knowledge center.") The great George Carlin warned about adding syllables and subtracting meaning. Profs. Highton and E.B. White would certainly concur.

Maybe we'll dance like Zorba said.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)