Rainey Blogs on Some Days

This will sound strange, but I found comfort last week in the death of actress Natasha Richardson because she died of a close head trauma just like my Mom did. Ms. Richardson was taking taking beginner ski lessons and fell on the bunny hill. My Mom was getting out of a friend's car to go to her job at Sally’s Beauty Supply at a strip mall in my hometown eight years ago. Neither activity is fraught with life-threatening risk, but both women were dealt a fatal blow, suddenly, without warning. "Life changes. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends" is what Joan Didion said about how suddenly death can come to someone we love in The Year of Magical Thinking . The comfort to me is that someone else died from a closed head injury. After my Mom died, over and over I kept hearing stories about people who survived closed head injuries. I know it can't be true, but they all seemed to survive and do well. The news anchor Bob Woodruff