Before I opened my eyes, my mother was dead. She’d died the worst death imaginable.  She’d been consumed by fire as I stood by helplessly watching.  My car was totalled when I hit the trees that seemed to appear out of thin air, even more disturbing was my insurance companies insistence that it wasn’t an accident and that even though they couldn’t prove it, I would not be reimbursed for my loss.  I’d come home see that there had been a sewer pipe that burst in my home.  The stench told me that everything I owned had been caught in a deluge of filthy, fetid water while I was gone. Still, none of those could stack up to my being told, in a voicemail, that my headaches were from a brain tumor that would kill me slowly and painfully.  The day was off to a great start.