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 In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  These sufferers are most often the patients with cascading symptoms who visit doctor after doctor in search of relief, and generally find little help for what ails them. Trauma is the great masquerader and participant in many maladies and “dis-eases” that afflict sufferers. It can perhaps be conjectured that unresolved trauma is responsible for a majority of the illnesses of modern mankind. Renegotiation The concept of renegotiation is completely different from cathartic “traumatic reliving,” or flooding, a common form of trauma therapy still used after “critical events” like rapes, natural disasters and horror, like the World Trade Center attack that Sharon experienced on 9-11. Recent studies suggest that these therapies often do little to help and can actually be retraumatizing. 102 One of the pitfalls of various trauma therapies has been their focus on the reliving of traumatic memories along with the intense abreaction of emotions. In these exposure-based treatments, patients are prodded into the dredging up of painful traumatic memories and abreacting emotions associated with these memories, specifically those of fear, terror, anger and grief. These cathartic approaches fall short as they often reinforce sensations of collapse and feelings of helplessness . Adam: Holocaust Survivor Adam was a financially successful businessman in his mid-sixties when I worked with him. He had a wife and family and was the owner of a multinational electronics company. As a quiet, kindly person, he was well liked by his employees and his acquaintances; yet Adam had no truly intimate friendships. Recently, his first grandchild was born. By all outward appearances, life has been good. It was the suicide of his son at the age of twenty-seven years that has broken this man of fierce, though subdued, determination. It has reduced him to obsessive self-blame and self-hatred. “There was always something different about Paulo,” Adam stated matter-of-factly. “He was a sensitive child who was easily frightened. When he was around the age of four years old, for reasons unknown, he would awaken in the middle of the night screaming and crying.” By late adolescence Paulo talked frequently of suicide. “Life is too hard,” he had repeated numerous times. Adam made sure that his son was never left alone during his darkest times. He had been fatigued by this decade-long ordeal, but he persisted in his committed vigil. Despite Adam’s exhaustive efforts to save his son, Paulo—no longer able to bear his pain—hanged himself in the bathroom. It was there that Adam found his limp, lifeless body. After the shock of Paulo’s suicide, Adam found that for the first time in his life he could not push ahead. Rather than feeling shattered by grief, Adam felt nothing … a state familiar to him even before losing his son. But this time, the numbness rendered him so fully shut down that he could not function.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  from Martha’s pushy straightness asking In a smash of mixed symbols How long must I wander here In this final house of my father? On the Solstice I was in Providence. You know this town because you visited friends here. It rained in Providence on the Solstice— I remember we passed through here twice on route Six through Providence to the Cape where we spent our second summer trying for peace or equity, even. It always seemed to be raining by the time we got to Providence. The Kirschenbaums live in Providence and Blossom and Barry and Frances. And Frances. Martha I am in love again. Listen, Frances, I said on the Solstice our summer has started. Today we are witches and with enough energy to move mountains back. Think of Martha. Back in my hideous city I saw you today. Your hair has grown and your armpits are scented by some careful attendant. Your Testing testing testing explosive syllables warning me Of The mountain has fallen into dung— no Martha remember remember Martha— Warning Dead flowers will not come to your bed again. The sun has started south our season is over. Today you opened your eyes, giving a blue-filmed history to your mangled words. They help me understand how you are teaching yourself to learn again. I need you need me le suis Martha I do not speak french kissing oh Wow, Black and Black . . . Black and . . . beautiful? Black and becoming somebody else maybe Erica maybe who sat in the fourth row behind us in high school but I never took French with you Martha and who is this Madame Erudite who is not me? I find you today in a womb full of patients blue-robed in various convalescences. Your eyes are closed you are propped Into a wheelchair, cornered, in a parody of resting. The bright glue of tragedy plasters all eyes to a television set in the opposite corner where a man is dying step by step in the american ritual going. Someone has covered you for this first public appearance in a hospital gown, a badge of your next step. Evocative voices flow from the set and the horror is thick in this room full of broken and mending receptions. But no one has told you what it’s all about Martha someone has shot Robert Kennedy we are drifting closer to what you predicted and your darkness is indeed speaking Robert Kennedy is dying Martha but not you not you not you he has a bullet in his brain Martha surgery was never considered for you since there was no place to start and no one intended to run you down on a highway being driven home at 7.30 on a low summer evening I gave a reading in Harlem that night and who shall we try for this shaven head now in the courts of heart Martha where his murder is televised over and over with residuals

• 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 Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'S ROOM 185 along the road and all the flat houses and all their colors under the sun. I remember I was weeping, but not as I am weeping now, much worse, more terrible— since I am with you, I cannot even cry as I cried then. That was the first time in my life that I wanted to die. I had just buried my baby in the churchyard where my father and my father's fathers were and I had left my girl screaming in my mother's house. Yes, I had made a baby but it was bom dead. It was all grey and twisted when I saw it and it made no sound— and we spanked it on the buttocks and we sprinkled it with holy water and we prayed but it never made a sound, it was dead. It was a little boy, it would have been a wonderful, strong man, perhaps even the kind of man you and Jacques and Guillaume and all your disgusting band of fairies spend all your days and nights looking for, and dreaming of but it was dead, it was my baby and we had made it, my girl and I, and it was dead. When I knew that it was dead, I took our crucifix off the wall and I spat on it and I threw it on the floor and my mother and my girl screamed and I went out. We buried it right away, the next day, and then I left my village and I came to this city where surely God has punished me for all my sins and for spitting on His holy Son, and where I will surely die. I do not think that I will ever see my village again.' I stood up. My head was turning. Salt was in my mouth. The room seemed to rock, as it had the first time I had come here, so many life- * 188 James Baldwin times ago. I heard Giovanni's moan behind me. VhM. Mon tr^s cher. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me.' I turned and held him in my arms, staring above his head at the wall, at the man and woman on the wall who walked together among roses. He was sobbing, it would have been said, as though his heart would break. But I felt that it was my heart which was broken. Something had broken in me to make me so cold and so perfectly still and far away. Still, I had to speak. 'Giovanni,' I said. 'Giovanni.' He began to be still, he was listening; I felt, unwillingly, not for the first time, the cunning of the desperate. 'Giovanni,' I said, *you always knew that I would leave one day. You knew my fiancee was coming back to Paris.'

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

  I KNOW YOU MEAN WELL, BUT . . .Don’t be surprised if people do or say weird, totally confounding shit when your world falls apart. These well-meaning folks are often referred to as “grief illiterate.” This doesn’t mean they’re jerks (although it may feel like it in the moment); it just means that they’re inexperienced in handling the big emotions that accompany life’s scary moments. As we’ve well established, none of us were taught how to survive storms of this magnitude. You likely didn’t know how to, either, before this sad, bad, mad, exhausting thing happened, and then it was trial by cancer, divorce, death, or some other flavor of crisis. Let’s be real, it’s frickin’ hard to know what to do or say when someone you love is in pain. It’s also hard to know and ask for what you need when you’re the one who’s struggling. And because this rocky terrain is rarely traversed, it’s easy to slip and unintentionally do or say insensitive things. In my first book, Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips, I called the unconscious (and often insanely inappropriate) things people would say “cancer faux pas.” Stuff like, How long do you have to live? or My cousin got that and died. Super comforting (and absurd), right? Well, grief faux pas are just as common, if not more so. Pain has the power to turn us into Pez dispensers of tactless behavior. We fidget, fumble, and vomit out words that are never supposed to go together, because we’re wildly insecure and uncomfortable. A sample of grief-illiterate comments follows. Feel free to play along at home, adding any you might have heard, as well: He’s in a better place now . . . (A better place is with me!) It’s God’s plan . . . (The God you’re talking about sounds like a psychopath.) You’re young; you’ll have another baby . . . (I want this baby!) Aren’t you over it yet? It’s been months, years, decades . . . (I’m sorry I’m not as bounce back–y as you. There’s no over; there’s only through.) At least she lived a long life . . . (There is no such thing as “at least” in grief.) There’s a reason for everything . . . (Excuse me while I vomit in my mouth.) He really brought this on himself (smoked, drank, ate sausage, didn’t call his mother on Sundays) . . . (Fault and blame are toxic. Please don’t.) I know exactly how you feel . . . (No, you don’t. You know your experience of grief, but you don’t know mine.) There are other fish in the sea . . . (I don’t want fish. I want my person.) It didn’t happen to you, it happened for you . . . (I just barfed in my mouth again.) Why aren’t you crying? (Why are you judging me for how I grieve?) It was only a dog; why are you so sad?

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

  Let your past survival be your prologue to thriving. Remember the post-traumatic growth we talked about in Chapter 5? Well, this is an important concept to keep in mind as you move ahead, with bravery, into your new life. You don’t have to wait for all the pieces to fall perfectly into place to start living more fully, or for the first time, or even again. It’s OK to rebuild, armed with the priceless insight you had to develop to survive—hard-won wisdom no one would ever choose to earn but which makes you more real and experienced for it. In different ways, we have all become more ourselves, and that’s a beautiful thing. You are and will always be a survivor. It’s OK to thrive once more. It’s OK to let go of old ways that no longer serve the person you’ve become—scars and all. Dad’s diagnosis, and subsequent death, woke me up. I’d trade all the awareness I’ve fought for, and any of the “positives,” if I could only go back to the way things were when he was here and we were us. No amount of personal growth is worth his loss. But the universe keeps expanding, slowing for no one. My new mantra: Don’t go back to sleep. Before we conclude our time together, I want to go back to Martha’s Vineyard with you. To that special restaurant with the magnificent view of the ocean and that profound and deeply moving advice my father gave me that I wasn’t ready to think about: “You know, love, I wish I had given myself more time like this. Your golden years aren’t promised. Figure out what your ‘more time like this’ looks like, and do it now. Make now your golden years.” More big medicine to me from my amazing pops. And now I’m passing it on to you. Figure out your “more time like this” and make your life golden, my friend. Hold fast to the courage needed to let all of yourself be loved—that’s the lesson I’ve learned time and time again from my many ruptures. Don’t avoid the parts of yourself that ask for the most tenderness. The so-called ugly parts that need to be witnessed and held. Like it or not, we’re all complicated beings who share one common thread: a need to love and be loved. Loving ourselves and others through the good times and devastating times is what life is all about. In fact, there’s no greater success to achieve.

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

  123 16. Elizabeth Ann Seton: Convert and Caretaker The following year, a fine new building, known as the White House, was completed as a residence for the sisters and for the students of St. Joseph’s Academy. The Sulpicians lightly adapted the rule of the Daughters of Charity, and the sisters and Mother Seton finished out their year of the novitiate together and took their vows in the summer of 1813. By this time, there were 18 sisters, and the school boasted 32 paying boarders and 7 lodgers living at the White House. Elizabeth struggled with her vow of obedience as well as her relationship with her Sulpician superiors. Dubois began to favor her assistant, Rose White, and Elizabeth worried the Sulpicians would replace her as Mother and appoint Rose in her stead. Within 4 years, she lost Cecilia, Harriet, and two of her daughters—Harriet to an unspecified illness, the others to tuberculosis. Anna Maria’s death precipitated a mental health crisis for Elizabeth. A new assistant, Simon Bruté, was able to engage Mother Seton on both an emotional and intellectual level beyond that of her previous spiritual directors. With steady guidance and empathetic companionship, he provided the stability she needed to grow into her role as Mother Seton. 16. Elizabeth Ann Seton: Convert and Caretaker 124 Elizabeth’s community opened a free school, and soon, invitations came from Philadelphia and New York to take over orphanages there. Rose White, with two sisters to help her, organized and ran f lourishing orphanages, free schools, and outreach to poor Catholics in both cities. Within a few decades, the Sisters of Charity were operating similar institutions across the eastern US. But Elizabeth Ann Seton did not live to see the reach of their success. She first grew sick in the spring of 1818, though she rallied to spend another 3 years endlessly writing. By the winter of 1820, she was in the final stages of consumption, and she died early in the new year. Elizabeth Ann Seton is recognized in both the Episcopal and Catholic Church. Her feast day is January 4, and she is the patron of widows, the deaths of children and parents, and problematic in-laws. Reading O’Donnell, Catherine. Elizabeth Seton: American Saint. Ithaca: Three Hills, Cornell University Press, 2018. 125 17 Saints and Modernity T he world has changed at an astounding pace in the last two centuries. New technologies, new forms of work, new countries, and new ways of thinking about humans’ place in the world have developed at rapid speed. You might think that the advent of modern medicine and the scientific method would have inspired a backlash against older forms of comfort in sickness, such as patron saints. To the contrary, the cult of the saints developed right alongside them.

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

  23. Óscar Romero: Voice for the People 178 He continued to broadcast his weekly masses and encouraged young activists to get involved with the archdiocesan office. He set up legal aid services for the poor and recruited Catholic aid to feed and shelter the many refugees from government attacks f looding the capital. Many survivors of attacks wrote to him or visited his office personally, eager to tell the one authority who cared about their missing and their dead. At the end of each week’s homily, Romero gave a short summary of this news: the missing, the dead, and their families’ grief. For many campesinos, it was the only public acknowledgment they ever received. In 1979, one of Romero’s proteges, Father Octavio Ortiz Luna, was holding a retreat at one of his parishes when the National Guard and Treasury Police attacked. Five men were killed, including Ortiz, who was crushed by a tank. Romero bitterly denounced the government cover-up and security forces in his sermon. On October 15, 1979, a coup replaced the military government with a joint military-civilian junta. For a few months, it seemed that reform and peace were a real possibility. Romero worked tirelessly to pressure the junta members for land reforms, earning criticism from both the conservative bishops and left-wing groups. By the end of the year, however, all chance for reforms was dead. The military made it clear they were in power. The civilian members of the junta resigned in protest. Romero’s Assassination and Funeral By early 1980, Romero knew that his name was on government hit lists. He had rejected offers of shelter and a bulletproof car, saying that if his f lock could not enjoy those protections, neither should he. Despite the imminent threat of death, his language grew even stronger. YSAX, the diocesan radio station, became the only source of reliable information in the country.

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

  Sometimes it’s hard to fathom how we can hold opposite feelings and realities at the same time, but two things can be true at once, and our hearts are wise enough to hold the contradiction. In the months (and years) after Dad died, I felt guilty for even allowing myself to feel positive. Though parts of my life were awesome, it felt wrong to acknowledge anything other than the awful experience of Dad’s physical absence. Staying in the pain made me feel like I was staying connected to him. I wanted to be like those Italian ladies who wear long black dresses for the rest of their lives, because I unconsciously equated being happy with abandoning Dad. But the more space I gave myself to explore the subterranean world of emotions inside me, the more capable I was of embracing and holding the duality. The grief train and the celebrations. Joy isn’t exclusive to the good times; it can exist in the hard times, too. I learned this with my own diagnosis. In the beginning, getting sick helped me recalibrate—and that felt really good and useful. I learned how to take care of myself for the first time, and as I’ve shared, the results paid off. Though I was technically sick, I’d never felt better. My wake-up call woke up other parts of me, too. Parts that had also craved healing. But after a while, it was easy to go back to sleep. To slip into old, hardwired, comfortable patterns of being and relating, because they were familiar. I used to beat myself up about not staying in a perpetual state of awakeness, as if not living my life “like every day was my last” meant that I was lazy, ungrateful, or worse—willfully blowing off the hard-won wisdom I’d learned in the cancer trenches. Maybe you can relate in your own way. Of course, none of that is true. It’s why I often come back to Jung’s notion of orbiting. The idea that we circle around the same themes our entire lives. And with each passing orbit, we reach the next circle of meaning (understanding, integration, assimilation). Translation: it’s normal to step in the same shit again and again, each time with a new willingness to go deeper. What a relief! If you find yourself orbiting, please don’t beat yourself up, mistakenly believing you’re in a downward spiral of stuckness. Believe me, I know the temptation, but orbiting truly is the instrument of our healing. We cycle through change, and all the feelings that come with it. And with each trip around the sun, our souls get wiser, our hearts expand, and we orbit to a new layer of ourselves in and among the both/and.

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

  Proactively offer specific support (bring the lasagna, watch the kids, run errands, help with funeral arrangements—OMG, please help with those . . . that stuff is so hard). And don’t just offer to help the week the loss happens. If you can, keep going, or at least keep checking in. Once the postdeath preparations, funerals, and celebrations of life are over, everyone else goes back to normal. But there is no normal for those left behind. Continuing to acknowledge the milestone dates (death anniversaries, birthdays, graduations) is the very definition of kindness. Share and research resources, including the specific phone numbers and contact information (therapists, counselors, bodyworkers, or, if you’re my crew, psychic mediums on speed dial). Give advice when appropriate and invited, but don’t meddle or judge. Huh? But how am I supposed to know the difference? I get it. I’m a fountain of feedback, so this tip is really just for me (wink, wink). Butting in on other people’s business, when your participation isn’t wanted, rarely feels good to them. Sometimes it can come off as shaming, corrective, or even patronizing, as if the other person is a dummy for not knowing. Other times it might feel like you can’t slow down enough to tune in to the person you’re trying to help. Again, if you’re like me, giving unsolicited advice (even when it’s great!) is as automatic and involuntary as breathing. In that case, you might say something like, “Do you want advice right now, or do you want to brainstorm, or do you just want to get it off your chest?” Asking permission never hurts. Remember, pain needs to be witnessed, not polished. You can also be honest about your discomfort: “I don’t know how to act and I’m afraid to get it wrong, but I love you and I want to try. Please tell me if I mess up.” Then stay open to hearing what’s helpful and what really isn’t. ACCEPTING HELP (FOR THOSE WHO ARE GRIEVING)I don’t know about you, but I’m a master list maker. I have multiple “to-do” lists going at once, and I take great comfort each time I draw a line through a completed task. Sometimes I even add a task I’ve already done, just to have the satisfaction of the strikethrough. Well, for most of us, when we are grieving, list making and task blasting falls away and apart, deep into the abyss of grief, loss, and unwanted change. Our biggest goals for the day may just be to get out of bed and out of pajamas—the same ones we’ve been wearing for four days straight.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  There were in Paris two citizens, one of them a lawyer, the other a silk-mercer, who had always been great friends, and on the most familiar terms. The law- yer had a son named Jacques, a young man very pre- sentable in good society, who often visited his father's friend, the mercer ; but it was for the sake of a hand- some daughter the latter had, named Frangoise, to whom Jacques paid his court so well that he became assured she loved him no less than he loved her. Whilst mat- ters stood thus, an army was sent into Provence to op- pose the descent which Charles of Austria was about to make in that quarter ; and Jacques was forced to join that army, being called out in his order. He had hardly arrived in the camp when he received news of his father's death. This was a double grief to him : on the one hand, from the loss of his father ; on the other hand* 382 THE HEPTAMEROX OF THE {Movd 44 from the obstacles he plainly foresaw he should en- counter on his return to seeing his mistress as often as he had hoped. Time allayed the first of these griefs, but made him feel the other more acutely. As death is in the course of nature, and it is usual for pa- rents to die before their children, the grief that is felt for their loss gradually subsides. But it is quite. other- wise with love ; for instead of bringing us death, it brings us life, by giving us children who render us im- mortal, so to speak ; and this it is, principally, which renders our desires the more ardent.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  Her husband arrived just as they were about to carry her to the grave, and was shocked to see his wife dead before he had heard any news of her ; but double cause he had to grieve when he was told how she had died ; and so poignant was his sorrow that it had like to cost him his life. The martyr of chastity was buried in the church of St. Florentin, being attended to the grave by all the virtuous women of the place, who did all possible honour to her memory, deeming it a happiness to be the townswomen of one so virtuous. Those, too, who had led bad lives, seeing the honours paid to the deceased, amended their ways, and resolved to live better for the time to come.* There, ladies, you have a true tale, and one which may well incite to chastity, which is so fine a virtue. Ought we not to die of shame, we who are of good birth, to feel our hearts full of the love of the world, since, to * The tragedy here related is thought to have occurred after August, 1530, when Margaret was delivered of a son named Jean, vvho lived only two months. 2 6 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE [ATovd z avoid it, a poor muleteer's wife did not fear so cruel & death ? Therefore we must humble ourselves, for God does not bestow his graces on men because they are noble or rich ; but, according as it pleases his goodness, which regards not the appearance of persons. He chooses whom He will. He honours with his virtues, and finally crowns with his glor}^ those whom He has elected ; and ofien He chooses low and despised things to confound those which the world esteems high and honourable. Let us not rejoice in our virtues, as Jesus Christ says, but let us rejoice for that we are enrolled in the Book of Life.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  the cause of the whole mischief, threw himself on the bodies of the two lovers, and with cries and tears im- plored their pardon. He kissed them repeatedly ; and then rising furiously, he drew the poniard out of the gentleman's body. As a wild boar wounded by a spear runs impetuously at him who struck the blow, so ran the duke at her who had wounded him to the soul. He found her still dancing in the reception-room, and gayer than usual, because she thought she had so well revenged herself on the Lady du Verger. Her husband seized her in the midst of the dance, and said, " You took the secret upon your life, and upon your life shall fall the forfeiture." So saying he grasped her by her head dress, and buried the poniard in her bosom. The astonished company thought the duke was out of his senses ; but he had done the deed advisedly ; and assembling all his servants on the spot, he recounted to them the glorious and melancholy story of his niece, and the wicked conduct of his wife : a narrative which drew tears from all his hearers. The duke then ordered that his wife should be buried in an abbey which he founded, partly with a view to atone for the sin he had committed in killing his wife ; and then he had a magnificent tomb erected, in which the remains of his niece and of the gen- tleman were laid side by side, with an epitaph setting forth their tragic history. The duke made an expedition against the Turks, in which God so favoured him that he achieved glory and profit. Finding on his return that his eldest son was of age to govern, he became a monk, and retired to the abbey in which his wife and the two lovers were buried, and there he passed his old age hap- pily with God.* * " It is probable that the Queen of Navarre has contented her- self with turning into prose an old fabliau entitled La Chatelaine 542 '^J^i'^ HEPTAMERON OF THE [//ov^/ yo

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  One hundred and fifty years ago, when the state of Victoria was declared a reality for european settlers, there were still 15,000 Black Aboriginal people living on this land that is now called Victoria. Where we sit now today, Wurundjeri women once dreamed and laughed and sang. They nurtured this earth, gum tree and wattle, and they were nurtured by it. I do not see their daughters sitting here among you today. Where are these women? Their mothers’ blood cries out to me. Their daughters come to my dreams nightly in the Windsor Hotel across the street from your Parliament. And their voices are haunting and brave and sad. Do you hear them? Listen very carefully, with your hearts open. They are speaking. Out of their mouths come what you have said you most want to hear. Their history is my history. While white immigrant settlers in Australia were feeding Wurundjeri women and children bread made from arsenic and flour, white immigrant settlers in North America were selling seven-year-old African girls for $35 a head. And these same white immigrant settlers were giving blankets lethal with smallpox germs to the indigenous peoples of North America, the American Indians. Each of you has come here today to touch some piece of your own power, for a purpose. I urge you to approach that work with a particular focus and urgency, for a terrible amount of Wurundjeri women’s blood has already been shed in order for you to sit and write here. I do not say these things to instigate an orgy of guilt, but rather to encourage an examination of what the excavation and use of the true language of difference can mean within your living. You and I can talk about the language of difference, but that will always remain essentially a safe discussion, because this is not my place. I will move on. But it is the language of the Black Aboriginal women of this country that you must learn to hear and to feel. And as your writing and your lives intersect within that language, you will come to decide what mistress your art must serve. October 24, 1985 East Lansing, Michigan Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the invasion of Grenada. The smallest nation in the western hemisphere occupied by the largest. I spoke about it to a group of Black women here tonight. It’s depressing to see how few of us remember, how few of us still seem to care. The conference on “The Black Woman Writer and the Diaspora” being held here is problematic in some ways, particularly in the unclear position of Ellen Kuzwayo, who had come all the way from South Africa to give the keynote address and arrived here to find the schedule shifted. But it was so good to see Ellen again. I’m sorry to hear her sister in Botswana has had another mastectomy.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  marking yellow exam-books tucked into a manilla folder orderly as the last thought before death I throw the switch. Through screams of crumpled steel I search the wreckage for a ticket of hatred my lover’s voice calling a knife at her throat. In this steaming aisle of the dead I am weeping to learn the names of those streets my feet have worn thin with running and why they will never serve me nor ever lead me home. “Don’t touch it!” she cries I straighten myself in confusion a drunken woman is running away down the Westside street my lover’s voice moves me to a shadowy clearing. Corralled in fantasy the woman with white eyes has vanished to become her own nightmare a french butcher blade hangs in my house love’s token I remember this knife it carved its message into my sleeping she only read its warning written upon my face. [1981] from Our Dead Behind Us (1986) to Gloria I. Joseph tikoro nnko agyina* * Ashanti proverb: “One head cannot go into counsel”To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman I I was born in the gut of Blackness from between my mother’s particular thighs her waters broke upon blue-flowered lineoleum and turned to slush in the Harlem cold 10 PM on a full moon’s night my head crested round as a clock “You were so dark,” my mother said “I thought you were a boy.” II The first time I touched my sister​alive I was sure​the earth took note but we were not new false skin peeled off like gloves of fire yoked flame​I was stripped to the tips of my fingers her song written into my palms my nostrils my belly welcome home in a language​I was pleased to relearn. III No cold spirit ever strolled through my bones on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue no dog mistook me for a bench nor a tree​nor a bone no lover envisioned my plump brown arms as wings​nor misnamed me condor but I can recall without counting eyes cancelling me out like an unpleasant appointment postage due stamped in yellow​red​purple any color except Black​and choice and woman alive. IV I cannot recall the words of my first poem but I remember a promise I made my pen never to leave it lying in somebody else’s blood. Outlines I What hue lies in the slit of anger ample and pure as night what color the channel blood comes through? A Black woman and a white woman charter our courses close in a sea of calculated distance warned away by reefs of hidden anger histories rallied against us the friendly face of cheap alliance. Jonquils through the Mississippi snow you entered my vision with the force of hurled rock defended by distance and a warning smile fossil tears​pitched over the heart’s wall for protection no other women grown beyond safety come back to tell us whispering past the turned shoulders

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Black children sitting down in the middle of metropolitan Melbourne to celebrate Koori Day, the black, red, and yellow flag of Pacific liberation and revolution snapping in the sun. “What do we want? LAND RIGHTS! When do we want them? NOW!!” Banners ringing the shopping mall in black, red, and yellow: PAY THE RENT! Merle, fierce and shining, a Caribbean woman writer calmly analyzing the sexism behind the lyrics of beloved calypsos. The Black South African seamstresses telling their multifaceted stories of survival, their soft voices filled with what Gloria calls a revolutionary patience. Black women taking care of business all over the world. September 21, 1986 New York City The Autumn Equinox, a time of balancing. Nudie died of lung cancer today in Puerto Rico. Frances and I had just come back from a beautiful weekend in Shelter Island, and as we walked in the phone was ringing and it was Yoli. I feel that same sadness and fury as when I heard Hyllus Maris had died in Melbourne last month. Some of us refuse to have anything to do with other people who have cancer, reluctant to invite another sorrow, as if any reflection of our own battle either lessens our power or makes it too realistic to be borne. Others of us fashion a connection of support, but sometimes that connection is not solid enough and invites another grief. I felt I had a special pact with Hyllus and with Nudie. As if we had promised each other we would make it, but nobody does, and they didn’t, and I won’t either. But magical thinking doesn’t work. I’m so glad Nudie had a chance to go back to Puerto Rico, which is where she always wanted to end up her time. Making it really means doing it our way for as long as possible, same as crossing a busy avenue or telling unpleasant truths. But even though it’s childish and useless, I’m still angry with both of them for dying. That’s probably how some of my friends feel about me right now, the ones who can’t look me in the eye when they ask how I’m doing, even though I’m very much alive and kicking. It’s nine years ago today I had my first breast biopsy. Which was outstandingly and conclusively negative. So much for biopsies. September 27, 1986 New York City I hope when I reread this journal later there will be more here than simply a record of who died in what month and how their passing touched me. Maybe at least how I can use that knowledge to move beyond the moments of terror. I much prefer to think about how I’d want to die—given that I don’t want to die at all but will certainly have to—rather than just fall into death any old way, by default, according to somebody else’s rules. It’s not like you get a second chance to die the way you want to die.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  Today Quintana is walking back up that hill. She’s not the towhead with the plaid jumper and the blue lunchbox and the ponytail. She’s the Princess Bride—and at the top of that hill stands her Prince. Will you join me please in toasting Gerry and Quintana. We did. We joined him in toasting Gerry and Quintana. We toasted Gerry and Quintana at St. John the Divine and a few hours later, in their absence, at a Chinese restaurant on West Sixty-fifth Street with my brother and his family, we toasted Gerry and Quintana again. We wished them happiness, we wished them health, we wished them love and luck and beautiful children. On that wedding day, July 26, 2003, we could see no reason to think that such ordinary blessings would not come their way. Do notice: We still counted happiness and health and love and luck and beautiful children as “ordinary blessings.” 3 L ast spring, 2009, I had some warnings, flags on the track, definite notices of darkening even before the blue nights came. L’heure bleue. The gloaming . Not even yet evident when that year’s darkening gave its first notices. The initial such notice was sudden, the ringing telephone you wish you had never answered, the news no one wants to get: someone to whom I had been close since her childhood, Natasha Richardson, had fallen on a ski slope outside Quebec (spring break, a family vacation, a bunny slope, this was never supposed to happen to her ) and by the time she noticed that she did not feel entirely well she was dying, the victim of an epidural hematoma, a traumatic brain injury. She was the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, who was one of our closest friends in Los Angeles. The first time I ever saw her she had been maybe thirteen or fourteen, not yet entirely comfortable in her own skin, an uncertain but determined adolescent with a little too much makeup and startlingly white stockings. She had come from London to visit her father at his house on Kings Road in Hollywood, an eccentrically leveled structure that had belonged to Linda Lovelace, the star of Deep Throat . Tony had bought the house and proceeded to fill it with light and parrots and whippets. When Tasha arrived from London he had brought her to dinner with us at La Scala. The dinner had not been planned as a party for her arrival but there had happened to be many people her father and we knew at La Scala that night and her father had made it feel like one. She had been pleased. A few years later Quintana had been at the same uncertain age and Tasha, by then seventeen, was spending the summer at Le Nid du Duc, the village her father had invented, an entertainment of his own, a director’s conceit, in the hills of the Var above Saint-Tropez.

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

  TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME (NOT ONE DAY AT A TIME)One day at a time can be a lot. One step at a time helps you digest and steady yourself. It’s gentler on the nervous system. Some moments will be tough (I’ve certainly shared a few of my doozies). Others will feel softer. If you’re prone to sky-high expectations of yourself, lower the bar. In fact, put it so damn low you could trip over it. Imagine you’ve just come out of a major surgery. Would you expect yourself to have the mental and physical ability to just get back to life as usual? Hopefully not. Hopefully, you’d be willing to allow your body time to recuperate. Remember that loss, traumatic events, and unexpected shit pickles (even those that are for the best) are draining in ways you may not even be aware of. As you learn how to navigate this stage of your orbit, be patient with yourself, dear one. You are not a machine. Taking things one step at a time allows you to set limits on how much you can handle in any given moment. For me, after Dad died, my bandwidth for “normal” life was next to nothing. I literally thought there was something wrong with me as I struggled to get out of bed. I don’t recognize myself anymore, I’d think. The things that lit me up previously felt dry and unappealing—like stale saltines. Why can’t I remember anything? Basic word recall went out the window. (Grief brain will do that to you.) The day I couldn’t remember the word for cat—“you know, the animal that says meow”—I nearly scheduled a brain MRI. Great, now I have tumors in my noggin, too—just what I need. Then I remembered: this is what the process of repair looks like. It may even feel like your body and spirit are totally (and endlessly) rearranging themselves. Does this still fit? Do I even like this anymore? Is this worn-out woobie ready to be retired? As with any major reorg, you will need breaks, hugs, and space. 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.”

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

  What I actually say: “It’s been a rough few years, but I’m really looking forward to the holidays. Do you have any special plans?” When I don’t want to talk, I ask questions instead. It’s a stealthy way to take the focus off me and direct it toward the other person. Because, sometimes we’d rather eat way too many passed hors d’oeuvres than open a can of anguish—and that’s OK. If it’s not the time or place for a sensitive conversation, you can also just be honest and let the person know. My dad often handled this by saying, “Not right now.” That was his way of letting us know that talking about whatever topic wasn’t a no; it just wasn’t a yes at that very moment. And guess what? Not everyone needs to know your business. Distant colleagues, passing acquaintances, and anyone located several rungs outside your inner circle are on a need-to-know basis—meaning, you don’t need to go there, especially if you’re having a tender day. The deli guy, dry cleaner, mail carrier, and gal from accounting at your old job? Skip them. SAY IT LIKE IT IS There’s something really liberating and honest about telling someone you’re grieving. When they ask, “How are you?” you answer, “I’m sad.” People don’t admit that very often. But there’s something innately human and empowering about dropping the mask (aka the mascara) and telling the plain ol’ truth. Unfiltered honesty can feel like a dose of potent medicine for your healing. Don’t be surprised if your authenticity strikes a deep chord in the other person: “Me, too.” This is an undeniable silver lining of your world falling apart: you’re less inclined toward small talk, and more open to deeper intimacy. To recognizing that we’re all just walking around with an assortment of boo- boos, longing for a place to belong. Look, it’s impossible to get all of this right. So, if you’ve ever been on either end of any of the awkward or painful behavior I’ve described, try to have compassion for yourself. We’re all going to fumble and make mistakes, and that’s OK. Own it, forgive yourself (and others—no one needs more baggage, this flight is full), and just keep trying. CHAPTER 10 LOVE IS LOVE, GRIEF IS GRIEF How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. — WINNIE-THE-POOH Grief is nothing if not humbling. We’re forced to come face-to-face with our pain, in all its complicated, braided-together, grief-train glory, to reckon with the messy parts of ourselves that are not so attractive, like the judgments we sometimes harbor. In grief circles, I’ve sometimes found that there’s a lens through which our pain is filtered and even ranked.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  He did not look well, his face was mottled, his eyes, behind his glasses, were like the eyes of a dying man who looks everywhere for healing. TouVe heard,' he whispered, as I joined him, 'about Giovanni?' I nodded yes. I remember the winter sun was shining and I felt as cold and distant as the sun. Jacques terrible,' terrible, terrible, It's moaned. Terrible.' *Yes,' I said. I could not say anything more. 1 wonder why he did it,' Jacques pursued, *why he didn't ask his friends to help him.' He looked at me. We both knew that the last time Giovanni had asked Jacques for money, Jacques had refused. I said nothing. They say he had started taking opium,' Jacques said, 'that he needed the money for opium. Did you hear that?' I had heard it. It was a newspaper specula- I believing, remembering the GIOVANNrS ROOM 35 tion which, however, I had reasons of my own extent of for Giovanni's desperation, knowing how far this terror, which was so vast that it had simply become a void, had driven him. 'Me, I want to escape,' he had told me, "je veux rrCevader—this dirty world, this dirty body. I never wish to make love again with anything more than the body.' Jacques waited for me to answer. I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever. 1 hope it's not my fault,' Jacques said at last. 1 didn't give him the money. If I'd known— would have given him everything I had/ But we both knew this was not true. Tou two together,' Jacques suggested, 'you weren't happy together?' 'No,' I said. I stood up. It might have been better,' I said, 'if he'd stayed down there in that village of his in Italy and planted his oUve trees and had a lot of children and beaten his wife. He used to love to sing,' I remembered sud- denly, 'maybe he could have stayed down there and sung his life away and died in bed.' Then Jacques said something that surprised me. People are full of surprises, even for them- selves, if they have been stirred enough. 'No- body can stay in the garden of Eden,' Jacques said. And then: 1 wonder why.' I said nothing. I said goodbye and left him. — — James Baldwin 36 Hella had long since returned from Spain and we were already arranging to rent this house and I had a date to meet her.