It was Monday, July 12, 2004, the second anniversary of my husband’s death. For the last three weeks I had been reading Tender Is The Night and The Beautiful And Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was entranced. He had put me under his spell. Oh, if only I had read him before I embarked on my memoirs! How differently they would have turned out, I kept thinking.
     On this brooding, rainy Monday when even the skies were weeping for my dear late husband I was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s letters, especially those that he had written the last two years before he departed this world, a young man of forty-four. His The Great Gatsby was beside me on the table to be read next. Alas, when I picked up the book and opened it the print was tiny on my tired eyes and I was contemplating on buying an edition with larger print when, just then, surprise, surprise, my daughter gave me the very first of The Great Summer Read, the New York Times Free Book Series.
     I held in my hands its first selection. A yellow notice said: “Here’s your first installment of The Great Gatsby. Look for another tomorrow. By Sunday, you’ve read the whole book!” As part of The New York Times logo in the tiniest print possible I faintly made out: “expect the world”.
     Well, I suppose I should have expected it then, I thought. This was utterly fantastic. I wouldn’t have to buy the book after all. Here it was in large print: a gift from the universe via the New York Times. My thanks went out to them. To think that of all the times they could have chosen they chose this one, and of all the books they could have chosen they chose The Great Gatsby! How on earth could they have known? The world can certainly be wonderful at times like these.
 

Ute's Poetry and Musings