This post, and all its responses so far, I have found amazingly touching and profound.

I, too, have asked that question. It's almost a cliche to talk about incidents on the road, but the other day, Christmas Eve in fact, we were driving down the highway heading home, and this one guy we passed suddenly comes charging up and around us, cutting us off with barely any room to spare, just before we both take our exit, and then continues to race us through the two lane road that goes through our town, taking insidious risks to swerve and cut us off. What's pathetic is that this isn't even the worst incident -- driving back from Montreal last summer, as I also described here, some guy kept getting in front of us and slowing down and refusing to let us pass him.

I don't get it, Dagmar. I don't have the answers anymore than you do. It's one thing if maliciousness is directed toward someone one knows and has some sort of personal issue with. But for a total stranger to initiate some kind of antagonistic or disparaging behavior without provocation is beyond my capacity to fathom.

I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. You and your family have my empathy...or sympathy, or whichever one of those is the appropriate word to use...I don't always know. And my prayers.