Have you ever had one of those moments where you hear something coming out of someone's mouth and you are stunned? Not just amazed, but truly floored, mouth agape, feeling much like you were just sapped by a blackjack only seconds away from your eyes rolling back in their sockets and your body collapsing slackened, left in a heap with only cartoon birds and stars about your head for company?

On Sunday, when I picked up the girls from their father�s house, he apologized for being out of it. He had a migraine all day Saturday and most of Sunday morning- but that wasn�t why he felt he was �out of it�. He said he was �still reeling from just learning that Ronald Reagan had passed away.�

I waited for the punch line with a grimace, and got none. I then ventured �Why, exactly? It�s been impending for the past 10 years.�

�Yes.� Sal said, �but he was one of my heroes.�

Blink. Blink. Blink. (Still no punch line, right?)

Clearly I had entered an alternate universe; Earth 2 is what DC comics explained it as- where stories that had no base in regular continuity could occur, or maybe this was Bizarro World.

I was afraid to proceed and instead stood with my mouth in the shape of an �O�.

Sal looked me in the eye and said-

�He was a great man.�

I merely gathered the children behind me and backed slowly out of the apartment.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

Thank you, iustitia for giving me the words to deal with this madness.