Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  as the face of my black mother was bleached white by gold or Orishala and how does that measure me? I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy. Under the sun on the shores of Elmina a black man sold the woman who carried my grandmother in her belly he was paid with bright yellow coins that shone in the evening sun and in the faces of her sons and daughters. When I see that brother behind my eyes his irises are bloodless and without colour his tongue clicks like yellow coins tossed up on this shore where we share the same corner of an alien and corrupted heaven and whenever I try to eat the words of easy blackness as salvation I taste the colour of my grandmother’s first betrayal. I do not believe our wants have made all our lies holy. But I do not whistle this man’s name at the shrine of Shopona I cannot bring down the rosy juices of death upon him nor forget Orishala is called the god of whiteness who works in the dark wombs of night forming the shapes we all wear so that even cripples and dwarfs and albinos are sacred worshippers when the boiled corn is offered. Humility lies in the face of history and I have forgiven myself for him for the white meat we all consumed in secret before we were born we shared the same meal. When you impale me upon your lances of narrow blackness before you hear my heart speak mourn your own borrowed blood your own borrowed visions singing through a foreign tongue. Do not mistake my flesh for the enemy do not write my name in the dust before the shrine of the god of smallpox for we are all children of Eshu god of chance and the unpredictable and we each wear many changes inside of our skin. Armed with scars healed in many different colours I look into my own faces as Eshu’s daughter crying if we do not stop killing the other in ourselves the self that we hate in others soon we shall all lie in the same direction and Eshidale’s priests will be very busy they who alone can bury all those who seek their own death by jumping up from the ground and landing upon their heads. from The Black Unicorn (1978) For Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde and Frederick Byron Lorde The Face Has Many Seasons A Woman Speaks Moon marked and touched by sun my magic is unwritten but when the sea turns back it will leave my shape behind. I seek no favor untouched by blood unrelenting as the curse of love permanent as my errors or my pride I do not mix love with pity nor hate with scorn and if you would know me look into the entrails of Uranus where the restless oceans pound. I do not dwell within my birth nor my divinities

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  13. Martín de Porres: Healer of Peru 96 Conquest of the Incan Empire In the early 16th century, the Incan empire was riven by terrible epidemics and civil war. The Pizarro brothers, newly arrived merchants and opportunists, conquered the empire in a series of agreements, battles, betrayals, and executions in the 1530s. They made relatively few changes to the administration of the economy and government, granting Spanish encomenderos control over the forced labor of the native population and the wealth not siphoned off to the Spanish crown. Spanish encomenderos abused their privileges, and indigenous people died in great numbers under this harsh system. Although they technically had some rights under the law, in many cases, they were effectively enslaved. By the end of the 16th century, many had been forced into settlements intended to concentrate the labor force. These settlements were also designed to make it easier for missionaries to convert them, and to that end, the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits in particular sent significant numbers of religious to the Americas. It was in this context that the Pizarros founded the city of Lima in 1535. It became the capital of the entire Viceroyalty of Peru, encompassing all Spanish-claimed territories south of Panama, stretching to the southern tip of the continent. The city grew rapidly; by Martín’s time, it held some 25,000 inhabitants, a population always in f lux as farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and laborers came and went. Martín’s Early Life Martín was born in 1579 to Ana Velázquez. We know little about Ana, save that she was born in Panama, was of African descent, and had formerly been enslaved. She had a years-long relationship with Juan de Porres, a young Spanish merchant with respected social connections who did business in Lima. Martín had a younger sister named Juana. Juan never legally acknowledged or legitimized these two children, but he did acknowledge them socially, to friends and family. Years later, Juan married the daughter of a wealthy businessman, but this did not curtail his relationship with his older children.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  She was tossing her head like an animal caught by the neck, and as she leaned back to take a deep breath, because she was suffocating, the light fell on her string of small, milky, evenly matched pearls. Ch£ri stared in stupefaction at the uncontrolled movements of the lovely throat, at the hands clasped together in appeal, and above all at the tears, her tears. ... He had never seen such a torrent of tears. For who had ever wept in front of him, or wept because of him? No one. Madame Peloux? “But,” he thought, “Madame Peloux’s tears don’t count.” Lea? No. Searching his memory, he appealed to a pair of honest blue eyes; but they had sparkled with pleasure only, or malice, or a rather mocking tenderness. Such floods of tears poured down the cheeks of this writhing young woman. What could be done about all these tears? He did not know. All the same, he stretched out an arm, and as Edmee drew back, fearing some brutality perhaps, he placed his beautiful, gentle, scented hand on her head and patted her ruffled hair. He did his best to copy the tone and speech of a voice whose power he knew so well: ‘ There, there. ... What’s it all about? What’s the matter, then? There ... there. ...’ Edmee collapsed suddenly, fell back huddled in a heap on a settee, and broke out into frenzied and passionate sobbing that sounded like yells of laughter or howls of joy. As she lay doubled up, her graceful body heaved and rocked with grief, jealousy, fury, and an unsuspected servility. And yet, like a wrestler in the heat of a struggle, or a swimmer in the hollow of a wave, she felt bathed in some strange new atmosphere, both natural and harsh. She had a good long cry, and recovered by slow degrees, with periods of calm shaken by great shudders and gasps for breath. Cheri sat down by her side and continued to stroke her hair. The crisis of his own emotion was over, and he felt bored. He ran his eyes over Edm£e as she lay sideways upon the unyielding settee. This straggling body, with its rucked-up frock and trailing scarf, added to the disorder of the room; and this displeased him. Soft as was his sigh of boredom, she heard it and sat up. ‘Yes/ she said, ‘I’m more than you can stand. ... Oh! it would be better to ...’ He interrupted her, fearing a torrent of words: ‘It’s not that. It’s simply that I don’t know what you want.’ 4 What I want? How d’you mean, what I ... She lifted her face, still wet with tears. ‘Now listen to me.’ He took her hands.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  She made fun of herself, ceased to feel her grief, and smiled. “I think I was out of my mind just now. There’s nothing wrong with me any longer.” But a movement of her left arm, which bent automatically to hold and shelter a sleeping head, brought back all her agony, and she sat up with a jump. * Well, this is going to be fun! ’ she said out loud and sternly. She looked at the clock and saw that it was barely eleven. Overhead passed the slippered tread of the elderly Rose, on her way up the stairs to the attic floor. Then there was silence. Lea resisted the impulse to call out for help to this deferential old body. “Don’t give the servants anything to gossip about. We mustn’t have that.” She left her bed again, wrapped herself up warm in a quilted silk dressing-gown and toasted her feet. Then she half opened her window and listened for she knew not what. A moist and milder wind had brought clouds in its wake, and the lingering leaves in the neighbouring Bois sighed with every gust. Lea shut the window again, picked up a newspaper, and looked at the date — “ October the twenty-sixth. Exactly a month since Cheri was married?” She never said “ Since Edmee was married.” Following Chari’s example, she did not yet count his young wraith of a wife as really alive. Chestnut-brown eyes, ashy hair which was very lovely with the vestige of a crimp in it — all the rest melted away in her memory like the contours of a face seen in a dream. ** At this very moment, of course, they’ll be in each other’s arms in Italy. And ... and I don’t mind that in the least.” She was not boasting. The picture of the young couple she had called up, the familiar attitude it evoked — even Cheri’s face, as he lay exhausted for a minute, with the white line of light between his tired eyelids - aroused in her neither curiosity nor jealousy. On the other hand, an animal convulsion again racked her body, bending her double, as her eye fell on a nick in the pearl-grey wainscot - the mark of some brutality of Cheri’s. * The lovely hand which here has left its trace, has turned away from me for ever,’ she said. “ How grandly I’m talking! Soon grief will be turning me into a poet! ” She walked about, she sat down, she went to bed again and waited for daylight. At eight o’clock Rose found her writing at her desk, and this upset the old lady’s-maid. Ts Madame not well?’ ‘So-so, Rose. Age, you know Doctor Vidal thinks I ought to have a change of air. Will you come with me? It promises to be a cold winter here in Paris. We’ll go south to the sun, and eat meals cooked in oil.’ ‘Whereabouts will that be?’

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I made her put the money away and promise me she wouldn’t spend a cent of her money while we were together and then I told her how I wished to dress her when we got to Denver, for I wanted to stop there for a couple of days to see Smith who had written approving of everything I did and adding, to my heart’s joy, that he was much better. On the Monday morning Sophy and I started westwards: she had had the tact to go to the depot first so that no one in Lawrence ever coupled our names. Sommerfeld and Judge Bassett saw me off at the depot and wished me “all luck!” And so the second stage of my life came to an end. Sophy was a lively sweet companion; after leaving Topeka, she came boldly into my compartment and did not leave me again. May I confess it? I’d rather she had stayed in Lawrence; I wanted the adventure of being alone and there was a girl in the train whose long eyes held mine as I passed her seat, and I passed it often: I’d have spoken to her if Sophy had not been with me. When we got to Denver, I called on Smith, leaving Sophy in the hotel. I found him better, but divined that the cursed disease was only taking breath, so to speak, before the final assault. He came back with me to my hotel and as soon as he saw Sophy, he declared I must go back with him, he had forgotten to give me something I must have. I smiled at Sophy to whom Smith was very courteous-kind and accompanied him. As soon as we were in the street, Smith began in horror: “Frank, she’s a colored girl: you must leave her at once or you’ll make dreadful trouble for yourself later.” “How did you know she was colored?” I asked. “Look at her nails!” he cried, “and her eyes: no Southerner would be in doubt for a moment. You must leave her at once, please!” “We are going to part at Frisco”, I said. And when he pressed me to send her back at once, I refused. I would not put such shame upon her and even now I’m sure I was right in that resolve. Smith was sorry but kind to me and so we parted forever. He had done more for me than any other man and now after fifty years I can only confess my incommensurable debt to him and the hot tears come into my eyes now as they came when our hands met for the last time: he was the dearest, sweetest, noblest spirit of a man I have met in this earthly pilgrimage. Ave atque vale.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  In so many ways, the rupture of my diagnosis led me to build a more meaningful life. (And bonus: this is where I first connected with my husband, Brian, who was the editor of my film. So in the end, the love story that was meant for me was born of my darkest moment.) Now, close to two decades later, I still live with stage IV cancer. Knock on wood, it continues to be slow growing, which has allowed me to continue figuring out how to best take care of myself and help others do the same. Change is a constant, though. Just because we have one rupture in life doesn’t mean that life will never get turned upside down again. A few years before my dad’s diagnosis, I started to realize that as amazing as my accomplishments were, and as strong as my physical health had become, deep down I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I’d gone from the frying pan of a cancer diagnosis to the fire of nonstop achievement. For me, prolonged “busy” looked like very long hours at work, while attempting to also manage my health and try to squeeze in time with my family and close friends. This go-go pace had become like breathing to me, autonomic—reflexive, involuntary—which isn’t such a surprise. In times of rupture, staying busy can be useful—even therapeutic—because it helps us keep up or return to some sense of “normal life.” Sounds about right to me—unless “busy” becomes a knee-jerk way to avoid our own feelings or allows us to find agoraphobia just this side of glamorous. No matter how necessary, noble, or lifesaving it may seem, when busyness becomes a permanent state of being, it undoubtedly leads to burnout, health issues, and even worse—loss of joy. As a wellness expert, I certainly knew better than to accept and live within this perpetual grind. Yet, a deeper part of me worried that if I paused to really hear what my inner self was saying (“Slow down!”), my world as I knew it would fall apart. The cancer would catch up. My business would fail. I’d disappoint the people in my life and forget to wear pants in public—the list went on and on. And yet, the 31-year-old me who started this journey was now the 50-year-old me, who existed in a very different place, with very different needs. I knew something had to give when I occasionally found myself fantasizing about getting sicker, as if another wake-up call would give me an undeniable excuse to stop and press reset—again.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  6. Radegund: Survivor, Queen, Abbess 46 peace talks with the Byzantine emperor Justin I. It was as a part of those talks that Radegund secured a splinter from the relic that, legend has it, had been brought to Constantinople by Constantine’s mother, Helena. Radegund died on August 13, 587, surrounded by her mourning community of nuns. Large numbers of people, dignitaries and townsfolk, wanted to view the body—some sick and hoping for a miracle. Rather than violate their enclosure by taking her body outside the convent walls, the viewers positioned themselves atop the wall, and the saint’s body was carried beneath them for viewing. She was almost immediately acknowledged by local people and bishops as a saint. She is known for healings and for saving some supplicants from drowning. In later years, the chapel where she lay was dedicated to her, along with parish churches at many of the locations important in her life. Her feast day is August 13. She is the patron saint of Jesus College, Cambridge, near which there is also a pub bearing her name. Reading McNamara, Jo Ann. “Radegund, Queen of the Franks and Abbess of Poitiers (ca. 525–587).” Chap. 4 in Sainted Women of the Dark Ages. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992. 47 7 Saint Making in the Middle Ages T his lecture explores how Christianity in Europe, specifically Catholicism, shifted in its understanding of sainthood from the time of Radegund in the 6th century to the time of Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. It also covers how the new way of recognizing Catholic saints produced stacks of invaluable documentation of holiness, religious beliefs, and even mundane details of everyday life for medieval people.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  11 Our holy and beautiful house [the temple built by Solomon], Where our fathers praised You, Has been burned by fire; And all our precious objects are in ruins. 12 Considering these [tragedies], will You restrain Yourself, O LORD [and not help us]? Will You keep silent and humiliate and oppress us beyond measure? Isaiah 65 A Rebellious People 1 “I LET Myself be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I let Myself be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ To the nation [Israel] which did not call on My Name. [Ex 3:14 ; Is 58:9 ] 2 “I have spread out My hands all the day long to a rebellious and stubborn people, Who walk in the way that is not good, [following] after their own thoughts and intentions, 3 The people who continually provoke Me to My face, Sacrificing [to idols] in gardens and making offerings with incense on bricks [instead of at the designated altar]; 4 Who sit among the graves [trying to conjure up evil spirits] and spend the night in the secret places [where spirits are thought to dwell]; Who eat swine’s flesh, And their pots hold the broth of a unclean meat; 5 Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me, For I b am too holy for you [and you might defile me]!’ These [people] are smoke in My nostrils, A fire that burns all the day. 6 “Indeed, it is written before Me, I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will even repay it [directly] into their c arms, 7 Both your own wickedness and the wickedness of your fathers,” says the LORD . “Since they too have made offerings with incense on the mountains And scorned and taunted Me on the hills, I therefore will measure [punishment for] their former work [directly] into their d arms.” 8 This is what the LORD says, “As the new wine is found in the cluster, And one says, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing and benefit in it,’ So I will do for the sake of My servants In order not to destroy all of them. 9 “I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, And an heir of My mountains from Judah; Even My chosen ones shall inherit it, And My servants will live there. 10 “And [the plain of] Sharon will be a place for flocks to graze, And the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, For My people who seek Me [who long for Me and require My presence in their lives].

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  8. Mendicants: Francis of Assisi and Louis of Toulouse 56 Francis’s father, convinced his son was mad, effectively disinherited him. Francis refused to abide by the court’s judgment and, invoking his self-proclaimed religious status as a penitent, summoned the bishop as his ecclesiastical judge. The bishop successfully mediated the conf lict, convincing Francis to give up his claim on the family’s goods. Francis memorialized this by stripping off his clothing as a symbolic gesture of renunciation. Francis as a Preacher Officially deemed a penitent, Francis wandered for months, depending on charity and serving the local lepers. Around 1209, he gathered a few followers, and they resolved to live according to the Gospels. They lived without possessions or even spare clothing and begged or worked for a living. The group made a home at a little chapel known as the Porziuncola. They traveled to Rome several times seeking papal approval for their way of life. Fortunately, Francis’s family connections had brought them a bishop and a cardinal to vouch for their orthodoxy. Pope Innocent III told them to come back with more followers. The brothers began to preach around Assisi and were tremendously successful. As his following grew, Francis struggled with leadership, as he would throughout his life. He was increasingly drawn to solitude in nature, and the early Franciscan hermitages he favored were often caves or other wild dwellings, where the brothers lived sparsely on handouts and through manual labor. This hard way of life took an increasing physical toll on Francis as he grew into middle age, but he continued to preach and travel. In 1219, he departed for Egypt to fulfill an old dream and travel as a missionary. He joined the forces of the Fifth Crusade, but the military environment triggered renewed f lashbacks, and he was an unsettling presence in the army encampment. When he returned to Italy, he found the order in turmoil. Rumors of his death overseas had spread, and in his absence, the leaders had made changes to the Franciscans’ way of life, sowing dissension in the ranks. 57 8. Mendicants: Francis of Assisi and Louis of Toulouse

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  I didn’t sleep a wink that night, and I don’t remember what I said to Dad the next morning. What I do remember was his biopsy. I marveled at how dressed up he looked in his wingtips and crisp button-down shirt. In his words, “You have to look spiffy for these things.” He was still groggy as we were leaving the hospital. Seeing him looking so vulnerable was foreign territory. It reduced me to feeling like a little girl trying to imagine what a grown-up would do in this situation. How should I act? What should I say? “I’m sorry your rock is a little wobbly right now,” Dad whispered as I held his arm to steady his balance. I dug my nails into my palms to shove my tears back into their ducts. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about, Dad. I’m lucky to be your rock for a change.” We sat quietly on a bench, our faces warmed by the sun, as we waited for my mom to bring the car around. After a bit, Dad turned to me with tears in his eyes. “I don’t like being in this cancer club, but if there’s anyone I’d want to be in it with, it’s you.” “Ditto, Dad,” I said. “I hate that you’re in the club with me, but we’ll do this together.” That I was sure of. THE QUESTION ISN’T WHY—IT’S WHATDad getting cancer didn’t make any sense. It was the summer of 2016, and he had been feeling great, working out with a trainer, and in very good shape for a 67-year-old man. His body was lean, his diet was healthy, and he was actively managing his stress better by learning to meditate (thanks to my mom). I couldn’t help but ask, Why Dad? The difficult thing I’ve learned about getting caught up in the “why” of any curveball is that this question is rarely answered. But I get it. It’s hard for us humans to accept that there are many things we don’t know, can’t know, or may never know. Instead, we like to fill in the mystery with our own clever, overactive imaginations. In fact, it’s one of the things our brains are designed to do—look at the past and scan it for clues in order to create risk assessments. The more we’re able to troubleshoot, the better chance we have at survival. The problem is, when our brains don’t have enough data, they can get anxious and make shit up. Cue the cuckoo—or is that just me? In the early days of my own diagnosis, I wondered what I had done to cause my cancer. Was I too angry or moody? Did I eat too many processed foods or enjoy a little too much cocaine in the ’90s? Perhaps it was karma for sending an adult sex toys catalog to my uptight school principal?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  My main consideration, at this point, was to coax his nervous system out of the shutdown caused by the shock and to begin establishing a base of resilience and self-regulation . I’d like to invite you, the reader, to ponder the following considerations. Were Paulo’s inconsolable screaming episodes beginning at age four and his choice of hanging himself mere coincidences? (Remember, Adam’s wife reported that her husband would also scream and cry during the night, just as his son had done). Or were these incidents some deep transgenerational reenactment of his father’s unfelt experiences and unprocessed emotions? Such possibilities are among the mysteries of trauma and of the human spirit. Certain authors discussing the Holocaust, such as Yael Danieli 103 and Robert Lifton, 104 have written groundbreaking analyses of the victims who lived through this horrific massacre. In working with Adam and a few other survivors of this kind of experience, I am personally confronted not only with the terrible knowledge of the cruelty that human beings are capable of, but also of the remarkable process by which the body is somehow able to compartmentalize the effects of this cruelty and go on with life. It maintains its tenuous hold, that is, until something is added to the unsustainable containment of their burden. Yet still, the smoldering flame of the deep self can miraculously reignite, given the right opportunity and carefully calibrated support. Epilogue After our session, Adam returned to the Polish town where he was born in search of any knowledge about his real mother, who had died during his birth. The Nazis had not destroyed the tombstone, and Adam replaced it with a new memorial stone because his heart “was so touched by knowing about her existence. ” Vince: A Frozen Shoulder The collision between the two contrary processes, one of excitation and the other of inhibition, which were difficult to accommodate simultaneously, or too unusual in duration or intensity, or both, causes a breakdown of equilibrium. —Ivan Pavlov It is not uncommon, particularly for a fireman, to be reluctant to see a psychotherapist—a “mind doctor.” This is especially true for a problem that is “obviously” physical. Vince was seeing a physical therapist for a frozen right shoulder. This disability was making it impossible for him to function in his job as a fireman. Treatment was not going well: after several sessions he was still barely able to move his arm from his trunk by more than a few inches. The consulting orthopedist had advised surgery: an operation in which the arm is “manipulated” (yanked violently) under general anesthesia in an attempt to free it. Such a surgery requires extensive and painful rehabilitation and often doesn’t improve the situation very much. Since there was no apparent physical injury, the therapist, in the hope of avoiding the difficult procedure, referred him to me. The symptoms had begun a couple of months before our appointment.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Life for him just stopped. After several months of paralyzing inertia, Adam made an appointment to see a psychiatrist. He was prompted to do this by a family friend who advised him to get some medication for his despondent condition. After taking a personal history, the psychiatrist suggested that Adam’s past was preventing him from grieving his son’s death and gave him the diagnosis of “complicated bereavement.” Although the idea that his early life was “traumatic” or even implicated in his current malaise perplexed Adam, he agreed to talk to me . Adam was born a motherless child. A massive heart attack during labor necessitated an emergency cesarean to save her only child. She died just as he was being born two months prematurely. Since his father had been conscripted into the Russian army, Adam was given to his father’s brother to be raised by his uncle and his wife. The aunt, who was supposed to care for him, was instead a cruel, likely psychotic, woman who repeatedly beat him. Beyond the torment of this treacherous beginning, rife with abandonment and abuse, Adam’s life moved through a series of further trials and sorrows. At the age of four years, his uncle and two older stepsisters were deported and exterminated by the Nazis. He was then passed on to a series of Christian families who tried to hide his Jewish origins. During this time he would, according to these families, scream in the middle of the night—just as Paulo had done when he was the same age. At the age of nine, Adam was given to a group of fugitives living in the forest. He “loved being there” because the people liked him and for the first time ever, he felt wanted. “That year was the best of my life,” he told me. Even though he loved and felt protected by his “forest family,” his night fits continued and grew in intensity. His crying and screaming would never subside, despite all attempts to soothe him. Since he could not even be awakened, the noise of his fits put his forest family in grave danger. So tragically, before his tenth birthday, Adam was sent back to the village, where he wandered aimlessly as an orphan. One night, Adam was taken to the police station and interrogated. As he had been instructed, he gave the Nazis his Christian name. The police told him he would be punished if he lied. Next, they forced him to remove his pants in full view of everyone. To hide his shame, nine-year-old Adam stared at the wall, only to see a crucifix. This terrified him, causing him to believe that he would end up on a cross if he were caught lying. He was then taken to a concentration camp. “Being delivered alive to the concentration camp,” he said, “was a relief; at least I was with other Jews.” Upon entering the camp, one of the prisoners from the village asked Adam his name.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  Her first marriage, to the producer Robert Fox, had taken place in my apartment. She had filled the rooms with quince blossoms for the ceremony. The blossoms had eventually fallen but the branches had remained, brittle and dusty, twigs breaking off, nonetheless still passing as decorative elements in the living room. When I walked in from Lenox Hill that night the apartment seemed full of photographs of Tasha and of her father and mother. Her father on location for The Border , riding a Panavision camera. Her father on location in Spain, wearing a red windbreaker, directing Melanie Griffith and James Woods on an HBO project he and John and I did together. Her mother backstage at the Booth Theater on West Forty-fifth Street, the year she and I did a play together. Tasha herself, talking to John at one of the long tables she had arranged outside for the wedding dinner on her farm in Millbrook when she was married a second time, this time to Liam Neeson. She had managed that wedding on the farm as before and after she managed summers at Le Nid du Duc. She had managed even a priest, a wedding mass. She had kept referring to the priest as “Father Dan.” It was only when he stood to actually do the ceremony that I realized that “Father Dan” was Daniel Berrigan, one of the activist Berrigan brothers. It seemed that Daniel Berrigan had been an advisor on Roland Joffé’s The Mission . It seemed that Liam had played a role in The Mission . Tasha had designed the entire event, in other words, as a piece of theater, the very kind of moment Tony liked best in the world. He particularly would have liked Tasha forgetting the wafers for the mass, tearing up long baguettes to pass in their place, but Tony was dead by the day of that wedding. Tasha died in March 2009. This was never supposed to happen to her . On her twenty-first birthday her father had made a film of the lunch he gave in her honor at Linda Lovelace’s former house on Kings Road. John had wished her happy birthday, on film. Quintana and Fiona Lewis and Tamara Asseyev had sung “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” on film. After lunch we had untied rafts of white balloons and watched them drift over the Hollywood hills, on film. These are the lines from W. H.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  And what if change takes time (which it certainly can)? Well, sometimes I think it might be enough to simply take note: I see you, Glenn. I see you, life. But at some point, you will be called to take action to listen to your heart. To listen to life. Losing Dad was a rupture so all-encompassing that I couldn’t just pick up the pieces and move forward with business as usual. The pieces no longer fit. I could no longer rely on sheer will to survive. I’d developed the skills that got me to a certain place in my health, marriage, and career, but I knew they couldn’t get me through this next chapter. Faith was the only answer. Not necessarily in God—though I was certainly more open than ever to divine support—but rather faith in listening to and trusting myself. Sometimes things fall apart, and it’s completely out of our control. Other times things fall apart because they need to. That doesn’t always mean that the relationship or job (or whatever) needs to end, but it does mean that change is already on the way, whether we like it or not. Scary, I know. For me, what needed to change was my relationship to my work. As I’ve shared, I used to bury myself in “busy” because I didn’t know any other way. Next, I hustled hard because I loved the praise it got me. Later, I grinded because it was a great way to avoid big feelings. When I noticed a “disturbance in the force” like, say, grief, I knew exactly how to swat it away. Get busy—emotions averted, deadlines met. Winning! Or so I thought. I wish I could have gently coached myself the way I would have a member of my community. But often it’s easier to see the wounds, fears, and perceived limitations that drive others than it is to connect to these parts of ourselves. In truth, every coach needs a coach, and my coach was gone. Dad had always guided me through big life transitions. I’d lay out my thoughts or problems with him, even the stuff I didn’t want to admit, and no matter how gnarly my dilemma, he’d help me find a path forward by saying the things I needed to hear, like . . . “Don’t hold back.” “Dig deep and hold fast.” “Say ‘I love you.’” “Let yourself off the hook.” “Show up.” “Make it a great day.” And even, “Knock it off.” An oldie but goodie that snaps me out of brain rot. His business advice, in particular, was often applicable to other areas of life, too. He’d remind me to “do the hard thing first,” which sometimes meant making the hard call, tackling the annoying job, and getting the tough stuff behind me without delay.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Even our table was the best in the house (I made sure of it, as I didn’t want to leave anything to chance). Dad ordered a great bottle of wine, as he always did. Brian, my normally stoic husband, was tasked with kicking off the birthday toast. One sentence in, his lips began quivering, unleashing a chain reaction of feels that rippled throughout the table. Mom’s eyes welled up. I retreated to my mental safe house— What would it be like to be the ocean? I wondered, as I willed my tears away with thoughts. Something that endures and remains no matter how life changes. But I wasn’t the ocean; I was a hurting human, surrounded by other hurting humans who didn’t know how to express their big feelings, let alone realize that it might be appropriate. Just then Dad swooped in to save us, allowing us to breathe again. “Thank you for coming here to celebrate this special day with me,” he said, gazing at the ocean I was trying to become. “You know, if I could do it all again, I’d give myself more like this. Summer has always been my busy season. And even though I could have, I rarely took a day off to experience something like this. So figure out what your ‘more like this’ looks like and make it happen sooner; don’t save it for your golden years.” Before I had a chance to let his words sink in, words that would become my compass in this next stage of life, he lobbed the final bomb that demolished my brittle defenses. “I hope you’ll all come back here on my birthday from time to time. This is a good spot to remember me. I love you all.” Mom leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Brian nodded and said, “Love you.” Meanwhile, I was not having it. I excused myself to the bathroom with some faux-upbeat comment like, “Jeez, Dad. Now I need to go fix my mascara—be right back.” Hot tears breached the surface as I briskly searched for the ladies’ room. I begged them to stop— Please, not now! —but my ducts overrode the system. No nail digging. No anchovies. No dead mice. No mental decoys or emotional jiujitsu could hold back my tidal wave of emotions from finally breaking. Once I found the bathroom, I locked the door behind me and promptly fell to pieces. Grief poured out of all the nooks and crannies I’d ergonomically stuffed it in. Come back to Martha’s Vineyard on his birthday without him? No way, no how. That would mean there was a world in which he didn’t exist.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  157 20. Josephine Butler: Victorian Feminist to arrest prostitutes, and the legislation also spawned grassroots “social purity” groups and “vigilance committees” across Britain. They sought to shut down music halls and theaters as well as brothels, lumping them all together as “dens of vice”—and in the process mounted campaigns against all extramarital sexual activities. Meanwhile, Josephine embarked on a f lurry of letter writing, aiming to expand resistance to the CDA to British colonies. She could not go herself, as George had become sick. He died in 1890. Josephine never fully recovered from his loss, but she continued to work for the suppression of prostitution regulation abroad and wrote frequently as an advocate of international causes. Butler left behind a voluminous correspondence, assorted biographical sketches of other campaigners for women’s causes, and six books. One book was a biography of Saint Catherine of Siena, who she refigured as a feminist prophet, a model for Butler’s own work. Butler felt a keen closeness with the saints, particularly female mystics such as Catherine and Teresa of Ávila. Their emphasis on personal communication with the divine mirrored Butler’s devotion to prayer, though she struggled with it at times. Butler died on December 30, 1906. She is remembered in the Anglican Church on May 30, and a college residence hall and a women’s college of higher learning in England bear her name, along with several memorials. Reading Boyd, Nancy. Three Victorian Women Who Changed Their World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Levine, Philippa. Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. New York: Routledge, 2003. The Ladies’ National Association she led against the CDA is now known as the Josephine Butler Society and still works on behalf of abused and underage sex workers. 158 21 Padre Pio: The Science of Miracles P erhaps no saint better represents the tension between the modern need for evidence and irrefutable proof and the unknowable miraculous workings of the charismatic saint than Padre Pio. In his long career as a Capuchin monk, he was revered as a mystic and ascetic, a recipient of miraculous stigmata. He was a founder and a healer who used his popularity to help the poor through modern science and medicine. He was also repeatedly investigated, censured, separated from his followers, and demonized as a fraud and heretic by the Vatican and his own order. His associates included fascists, Nazi sympathizers, and war profiteers. This lecture covers the life of this controversial figure.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Oh, Sir, I should have said that, for mine is the loss, mine the unspeakable misfortune now”, and through my tears I saw that his eyes too were full. He had just given me a letter to Froude, “good, kindly Froude”, who, he was sure, would help me in any way of commendation to some literary position “if I have gone, as is most likely”, and in due time Froude did help me as I shall tell in the proper place. My pen-portrait of Carlyle was ferociously attacked by a kinsman, Alexander Carlyle, who evidently believed that I had got my knowledge of Carlyle’s weakness from Froude’s revelations in 1904. But luckily for me, Sir Charles Jessel remembered a dinner in the Garrick Club given by him in 1886 or 1887, at which both Sir Richard Quain and myself were present. Jessel recalled distinctly that I had that evening told the story of Carlyle’s impotence as explaining the sadness of his married life and had then asserted that the confession came to me from Carlyle himself. At that dinner Sir Richard Quain said that he had been Mrs. Carlyle’s physician and that he would tell me later exactly what Mrs. Carlyle had confessed to him. Here is Quain’s account as he gave it me that night in a private room at the Garrick. He said: “I had been a friend of the Carlyles for years: he was a hero to me, one of the wisest and best of men: she was singularly witty and worldly-wise and pleased me even more than the sage. One evening I found her in great pain on the sofa: when I asked her where the pain was, she indicated her lower belly and I guessed at once that it must be some trouble connected with the change of life. “I begged her to go up to her bedroom and I would come in a quarter of an hour and examine her, assuring her the while that I was sure I could give her almost immediate relief. She went upstairs. In about ten minutes I asked her husband, would he come with me? He replied in his broadest Scotch accent, always a sign of emotion with him: ‘I’ll have naething to do with it. Ye must just arrange it yerselves’. “Thereupon I went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Carlyle’s bedroom door: no reply: I tried to enter: the door was locked and unable to get an answer I went downstairs in a huff and flung out of the house. “I stayed away for a fortnight but when I went back one evening I was horrified to see how ill Mrs. Carlyle looked stretched out on the sofa, and as pale as death. ‘You’re worse?’ I asked. ‘Much worse and weaker!’ she replied. ‘You naughty obstinate creature!’ I cried.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Do yourself a solid and allow them. Taking one step at a time is true for relationships, too—especially when there’s tension as a result of changing roles or family dynamics. In that case, don’t expect things to be repaired right away. Loss brings up a lot of unresolved issues for everyone , not just you. Finding resolution takes a minute (or a lifetime), and let’s be honest, relationships don’t always work out the way we wish. That can certainly be painful—another cause for grief. But just because we don’t get the relationship we wanted doesn’t always mean things haven’t worked out in the spiritual sense. On some level, everything does. For those uncomfortable in-between moments, it can help to remember Rumi’s wisdom: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” After going through this journey with my chosen father, I have a different kind of peace with my biological father and the role he played in my life. As a result of exploring and healing aspects of my own trauma, I have more compassion for the adversity BD faced in his life, too. I forgive him for the pain he caused, and I’m sorry for how I wounded him. Though he wasn’t meant to be my day-today dad, I’m grateful he was part of making me and that I have some of the best parts of his nature. Like it or not, no physical relationship is perfect or forever. And perhaps no relationship solely exists in physical form. Nevertheless, our bonds remain. Maybe when we shed our bodies, our baggage goes with them. Suddenly it’s “only love,” like one big, free-spirited Burning Man Festival in the sky (without the dust, sweat, and hangovers). Wouldn’t that be a gas? I guess we’ll see one day. LOOK FOR THE LIGHT One of my grandma’s favorite mottoes was “Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle.” When it all feels like too much, look for the light. Life is full of ups and downs, especially when we’re committed to living it fully. But no matter how dark it gets, there’s always light to be found—small moments that remind us that beauty still exists. A child’s laughter, sun on our face, positive memories of the people we’ve lost. And, of course, a wagging tail. These are the things that point us toward the nourishing light. For me, the creative process is how I find the light. That’s what writing this book was all about. Using my pen to turn my pain into purpose. In fact, when I started this process, I set two intentions—one for you and one for me. “May this book help to normalize conversations around difficult emotions so that people feel less alone and crazy.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  TAKING THEIR LEADA few weeks after our talk, Dad began sleeping more. Detaching from his surroundings and relationships. “I can feel him withdrawing, fading away,” Mom painfully confessed. Like an animal who instinctually isolates when they’re vulnerable. But according to hospice, social withdrawal is another natural part of the dying process. It’s the person’s way of starting to let go of their physical life, and as hard as it is for those who remain, that physical life includes their loved ones. When this happens, family members can feel hurt or maybe worried that they’ve upset the person who is dying. Or they can take it personally, not understanding why their loved one is showing less interest in connection. In reality, this distance is very understandable. Dad often joked, “Dying takes a lot out of you.” From observing him, I second that. The body slowly breaks down. It can take 45 minutes to swallow a pill. Getting to and from the bathroom looks as tricky as walking a high wire. And don’t even get me started on bathing. Dying is fucking exhausting. Because extended family members and friends weren’t around day-to-day, they had a hard time grasping what little energy he had. I imagine that in their minds, Ken was still Ken. And though his spirit was as strong as ever, his body and presence weren’t. Sometimes they wanted him to do what they wanted to do or talk about what they wanted to talk about. If he wasn’t open to exploring certain topics (often because he didn’t have the energy or desire to do so), they might get offended, perhaps not realizing that they were centering their needs over his. Having unrealistic (or even any) expectations of the dying is a surefire way to drive a wedge between you, the person you’re losing, and everyone else. Expectations can also be a way to mask our torn-up feelings about the enormity of the loss we’re facing. While we need to care for our emotions, we may also need to lower our standards, do our best to go with the flow, and once again remind ourselves that everyone is doing the best they can during a really shitty and difficult time. When someone is dying, a piece of everyone is dying with them. None of us are prepared for this. Even if someone has a lot of experience with loss, unwieldy emotions will still come up because we’re all flailing around in anticipatory grief and existential mourning. LISTEN WITH YOUR FULL BEINGListen to the person who is dying with your ears and your heart. Pick up what’s being said and not said. Difficult stuff to do, I know. We’ll get it wrong a lot, we’ll mess up when we’re trying to step up, but our willingness to try is the most generous way we can show our love when people need it most.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  In retrospect, the dominoes that fell once Dad got sick now seem inevitable, like they had been a long time coming. My mind always goes back to the conference I spoke at in 2016, before the return flight was delayed, before Mom greeted me at the door at midnight, before the words “Dad has a mass on his pancreas” changed our lives forever. Readying myself to go onstage that night to hopefully inspire people to live fully, I remember thinking, Once this is over, then I’ll live. Once this task—obligation, deadline, to-do—was complete, then I’d [take better care of myself, visit my best friend . . . fill in the blank]. But every time I finished a task or project, I failed to pause and keep the promises I had made to myself. Instead, I’d automatically turn to another item on my list. I knew I needed to recalibrate for quite some time. I just didn’t know how. Then illness happened, loss happened, crisis happened, and once again, I was reminded that life is always speaking to us. At first, it taps us gently and whispers in our ears. Our intuition sharpens and our gut tingles. Our dreams become more vivid as we unconsciously work out the messages being offered in our sleep. Life continues trying to get our attention in the hopes that we’ll recalibrate on our own. But when we refuse to pick up what life is laying down, those whispers can turn into wrecking balls. It’s kinda like the Glenn Close character in the movie Fatal Attraction. Life basically says, “I will not be ignored, Dan.” And if you shrug her off long enough, she’ll boil your bunny. Horrific, I know. Maybe your life isn’t as deranged (and dramatic) as mine, but my point still remains: Don’t blow off the messages. Listen to the whispers before they become roars. Even though it’s human nature to kick the can down the road because fear comes up, excuses multiply, and there’s a sale at Target, life (like Glenn Close) is very persistent. So what then? And what if change takes time (which it certainly can)? Well, sometimes I think it might be enough to simply take note: I see you, Glenn. I see you, life. But at some point, you will be called to take action to listen to your heart. To listen to life. Losing Dad was a rupture so all-encompassing that I couldn’t just pick up the pieces and move forward with business as usual. The pieces no longer fit. I could no longer rely on sheer will to survive. I’d developed the skills that got me to a certain place in my health, marriage, and career, but I knew they couldn’t get me through this next chapter. Faith was the only answer. Not necessarily in God—though I was certainly more open than ever to divine support—but rather faith in listening to and trusting myself.