Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson) (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was an American singer, comedian, and actor of Jewish descent. In his heyday, he was dubbed “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.”

Why Al Jolson, though? Why does Hempel single this detail out and use it for the title? Jolson was famous for performing in blackface, a practice that at the time was not yet taboo in the entertainment industry. The image of a white man wearing this disturbing performer’s “mask” may tie in with the narrator’s sense that she was putting on a performance for her dying friend, behaving in a way that they both knew was deeply and disturbingly fake. This fakeness might be extended to the behavior of the nurses, the doctor, and of all of us in the face of bleak realities.

The Kübler-Ross Model, commonly referred to as “the five stages of grief,” is a hypothesis introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. It states that “when a person is faced with the reality of impending death or other extreme, awful fate, he or she will experience a series of emotional stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (in no specific sequence).” (Wikipedia)

ringsome – German ringsum, around (HWS) + ring-link + ringsum: (German) around → Rings um are the first two words of Theodor Mommsen’s monumental History of Rome.

A ringsome rainbow must be completed by the mirror image of itself reflected on the aquaface.

PROPOSED SUGGESTION: ringsome: in the shape of a ring, like “lonesome” or “handsome” or “frothsome” or “jetsome”