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 I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  While there are certainly different degrees of complicated grief and tragic outcomes, one thing is clear: you do you. What other people think of your grief is none of your business; what matters is what you think. Whatever your heart is feeling matters. As any pet owner who has mourned their beloved Fluffy heading over the rainbow bridge knows, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who get it and those who don’t. I was reminded of this when my dog Buddy died in 2016, just weeks before my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Buddy’s loss felt as real as anything . . . because it was. Pain is pain. With that in mind, this chapter is for anyone who’s ever felt sheepish about grieving something deemed “not significant.” IN DOGS WE TRUST While my great-great-grandfather put his bet on God, I choose dogs. Dogs (or any pets, for that matter) are our chosen family. They don’t have the baggage that comes with actually being related to you. They don’t ask you to drive them places and give them money. They don’t marry deadbeats or leave their dirty underwear on the floor. And when you want to binge-watch Judge Judy, they’re more than happy to join you—no complaints. To them, you are Christmas morning. They’re always ecstatic to be with you. Whether you’ve been gone for a week or you’re just returning from changing a load of laundry, it’s like, OMG, you’re back! It’s sooo good to see you! Truth be told, sometimes I love animals more than people. Maybe it’s because as a child, I had more fourlegged friends than two-legged ones. Much to my mother’s dismay, I was always rescuing critters. I even made outfits for my “guests” by cutting tail holes in my baby clothes—the ones my mom had meticulously saved for my own children. Furry friends helped me through my tumultuous college years, painful breakups, job changes, and, of course, my diagnosis. My cat Crystal was the first “person” I uttered the “c word” to. (“It’s cancer. What are we going to do, Crystal?”) Knowing that animals and nature would be a necessary part of healing my body, I left New York City after my diagnosis and moved to the mountains, where I dreamed of recovering and rescuing abandoned creatures in my spare time. Creatures who needed stable, loving homes—just like I once had. But my attachment to my animals ramped up several notches when it became clear postdiagnosis that being a pet mommy was much safer than being a human mommy. If I wanted to mother a biological child, I might be putting my life at risk. My oncologist described it like this: “Picture your disease like a rock balancing on top of a mountain. Right now, that rock is stable, not causing you any harm. If something (like the hormones from pregnancy) were to change that, your rock may start tumbling down the mountain.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  In all of those intensive care units there were the same blue-and-white printed curtains. In all of those intensive care units there were the same sounds, the same gurgling through plastic tubing, the same dripping from the IV line, the same rales, the same alarms. In all of those intensive care units there were the same requirements to guard against further infections, the donning of the double gowns, the paper slippers, the surgical cap, the mask, the gloves that pulled on only with difficulty and left a rash that reddened and bled. In all of those intensive care units there was the same racing through the unit when a code was called, the feet hitting the floor, the rattle of the crash cart. This was never supposed to happen to her, I remember thinking—outraged, as if she and I had been promised a special exemption—in the third of those intensive care units. By the time she reached the fourth I was no longer invoking this special exemption. When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children. I just said that, but what does it mean? All right, of course I can track it, of course you can track it, another way of acknowledging that our children are hostages to fortune, but when we talk about our children what are we saying? Are we saying what it meant to us to have them? What it meant to us not to have them? What it meant to let them go? Are we talking about the enigma of pledging ourselves to protect the unprotectable? About the whole puzzle of being a parent? Time passes. Yes, agreed, a banality, of course time passes. Then why do I say it, why have I already said it more than once? Have I been saying it the same way I say I have lived most of my life in California? Have I been saying it without hearing what I say? Could it be that I heard it more this way: Time passes, but not so aggressively that anyone notices? Or even: Time passes, but not for me? Could it be that I did not figure in either the general nature or the permanence of the slowing, the irreversible changes in mind and body, the way in which you wake one summer morning less resilient than you were and by Christmas find your ability to mobilize gone, atrophied, no longer extant? The way in which you live most of your life in California, and then you don’t? The way in which your awareness of this passing time—this permanent slowing, this vanishing resilience—multiplies, metastasizes, becomes your very life? Time passes. Could it be that I never believed it? Did I believe the blue nights could last forever? L 3 ast spring, 2009, I had some warnings, flags on the track, definite notices of darkening even before the blue nights came.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  John the Divine in 2003 and am struck by how young John and I appeared to be, how well. In actual fact neither of us was in the least well: John had that spring and summer undergone a series of cardiac procedures, most recently the implantation of a pacemaker, the efficacy of which remained in question; I had three weeks before the wedding collapsed on the street and spent the several nights following in a Columbia Presbyterian ICU being transfused for an unexplained gastrointestinal bleed. “You’re just going to swallow a little camera,” they said in the ICU when they were trying to demonstrate to themselves what was causing the bleed. I recall resisting: since I had never in my life been able to swallow an aspirin it seemed unlikely that I could swallow a camera. “Of course you can, it’s only a little camera.” A pause. The attempt at briskness declined into wheedling: “It’s really a very little camera.” In the end I did swallow the very little camera, and the very little camera transmitted the desired images, which did not demonstrate what was causing the bleed but did demonstrate that with sufficient sedation anyone could swallow a very little camera. Similarly, in another less than entirely efficient use of high-tech medicine, John could hold a telephone to his heart, dial a number, and get a reading on the pacemaker, which proved, I was told, that at the given instant he dialed the number (although not necessarily before or after) the device was operating. Medicine, I have had reason since to notice more than once, remains an imperfect art. Yet all had seemed well when we were shaking the water off the leis onto the grass outside St. John the Divine on July 26 2003. Could you have seen, had you been walking on Amsterdam Avenue and caught sight of the bridal party that day, how utterly unprepared the mother of the bride was to accept what would happen before the year 2003 had even ended? The father of the bride dead at his own dinner table? The bride herself in an induced coma, breathing only on a respirator, not expected by the doctors in the intensive care unit to live the night? The first in a cascade of medical crises that would end twenty months later with her death? Twenty months during which she would be strong enough to walk unsupported for possibly a month in all? Twenty months during which she would spend weeks at a time in the intensive care units of four different hospitals?

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  I remember Morty and Diana arguing heatedly at dinner one night over this entirely hypothetical point. Morty and Diana and the heated argument at dinner about whether or not to refuse to go to a party given by Sidney Korshak are, I have to conclude, what people mean when they mention my wonderful memories. I recently saw Diana in an old commercial, one of those curiosities that turn up on YouTube. She is wearing a pale mink stole, draping herself over the hood of an Olds 88. In her smoky voice, she introduces the Olds 88 as “the hottest number I know.” The Olds 88 at this point begins to talk to Diana, mentioning its own “rocket engine” and “hydra-matic drive.” Diana wraps herself in the pale mink stole. “This is great ,” she replies to the Olds 88, again in the smoky voice. It occurs to me that Diana does not sound in this Olds 88 commercial as if she would necessarily refuse to go to a party given by Sidney Korshak. It also occurs to me that no one who now comes across this Olds 88 commercial on YouTube would know who Sidney Korshak was, or for that matter who Diana was, or even what an Olds 88 was. Time passes. Diana is dead now. She died in 1971, at age forty-five, of a cerebral bleed. She had collapsed after a wardrobe fitting for a picture she was due to start in a few days, the third lead, after Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins, in Play It As It Lays , for which John and I had written the screenplay and in which she was replaced by Tammy Grimes. The last time I saw her was in an ICU at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Lenny and I had gone together to Cedars to see her. The next time Lenny and I were in an ICU at Cedars together it was to see her and Nick’s daughter Dominique, who had been strangled outside her house in Hollywood. “She looks even worse than Diana did,” Lenny whispered when she saw Dominique, her intake of breath so sudden that I could barely hear her. I knew what Lenny was saying. Lenny was saying that Diana had not lived. Lenny was saying that Dominique was not going to live. I knew this—I suppose I had known it from the time the police officer who called identified himself as “Homicide”—but did not want to hear anyone say it. I ran into one of Diana’s daughters a few months ago, in New York. We had lunch in the neighborhood. Diana’s daughter remembered that we had last seen each other when Diana was still alive and living in New York and I had brought Quintana to play with her daughters. We promised to keep in touch.

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

  As our amazing nurse called his time of death, Mom and I just sat there in awe, tears streaming down our own smiling faces. “Dad, we’re not happy you’re gone, we’re happy you’re at peace.” Rest in love, Dad. Rest in love. CARING FOR THE DYING This was a tender chapter to write and likely one to read. If you’re in the season of life where these stories and teachings apply to you, I hope my observations help illuminate your path. The bulk of my guidance and insights are woven into my stories, so you may want to review this chapter again. Here are a few other useful nuggets that helped me, too. Get support before you think you need it: I shared this tip earlier, and I could probably include it in every chapter. Regardless of how incredibly capable you are, you are not invincible, and neither is your body. It’s easy to underestimate the toll this experience takes on you, your health, and your mental well-being. Don’t wait until you’re a puddle on the floor; get ahead of this, and trust me when I say you’ll need support, pal. It’s really not negotiable. Surrender to it. Breathe and check in with yourself: Once again, stay connected to your breath. Notice how you’re breathing when you’re with the person; notice if you’re holding your breath. If you feel your heart racing, try slowing your breath down. Go to the bathroom if you need privacy to ground yourself. If you’re like me, it’s easy to dissociate or feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience when you’re flooded with emotions. I’ll say it again: basically every weird thing going on is normal. Emulate the energy you admire: Think about a person whose energy you love to be around, someone who makes you feel really good. You leave your time together feeling more buoyant than when you arrived. For me, people like that exude calmness and joy, they’re easy to talk to, and they’re wonderful listeners. This is the kind of energy we want to emulate when we’re lucky enough to be with someone who is transitioning. Oh, and one more thing. You’re doing a really great job with this really tough stuff. If I could hug you right now, I would. Let’s keep going. CHAPTER 8 BEYOND THE STARS Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me.

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

  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. I couldn’t handle that. Flashes of all the things I was going to miss doing with Dad rotated through my brain. Searching for treasures at the flea market on Sundays, phone calls to tell him about my latest creative endeavor, needling each other on election nights with playful text threads, hikes with our dogs, sunset boat rides on the lake where my parents lived for over 30 years in their dream house. The ordinary pleasures that make up an extraordinary life. Experiences I would no longer have after he left me. . . . Shit. There it was, the heart of the pain I’d worked so hard to heal or avoid—abandonment. Once again, I would be fatherless. Through my desperate gasps, I heard what sounded like a moan. Was there someone else waiting to restuff their pain in the privacy of a dark ladies’ room? After a disorienting moment, I soon realized the moans were coming from me. I’d never made sounds like this before—foreign, guttural, primal. They were the sounds of agony. The real, kind, and stable Dad I’d prayed for, to both Jesus and Santa (to cover my bases), the one who was present and loving, the one who accepted me for who I was, not who he expected me to be, the one who stayed—I’d finally found him, and now cancer, the very thing I’d worked so damn hard to accept and cohabitate with, was taking him from me. Suddenly, I was furious with myself, my disease, and the entire world. Fuck you, cancer!

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone gave her the impression of moving and living. What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity. Have I really salvaged her from fiction? Just before the rhythm I hear falters and fades, I catch myself wondering whether, during the years I knew her, I had not kept utterly missing something in her that was far more she than her chins or her ways or even her French—something perhaps akin to that last glimpse of her, to the radiant deceit she had used in order to have me depart pleased with my own kindness, or to that swan whose agony was so much closer to artistic truth than a drooping dancer’s pale arms; something, in short, that I could appreciate only after the things and beings that I had most loved in the security of my childhood had been turned to ashes or shot through the heart. There is an appendix to Mademoiselle’s story. When I first wrote it I did not know about certain amazing survivals. Thus, in 1960, my London cousin Peter de Peterson told me that their English nanny, who had seemed old to me in 1904 in Abbazia, was by now over ninety and in good health; neither was I aware that the governess of my father’s two youngest sisters, Mlle Bouvier (later Mme Conrad), survived my father by almost half a century. She had entered their household in 1889 and stayed six years, being the last in a series of governesses. A pretty little keepsake drawn in 1895 by Ivan de Peterson, Peter’s father, shows various events of life at Batovo vignetted over an inscription in my father’s hand: A celle qui a toujours su se faire aimer et qui ne saura jamais se faire oublier; signatures have been appended by four young male Nabokovs and three of their sisters, Natalia, Elizaveta, and Nadezhda, as well as by Natalia’s husband, their little son Mitik, two girl cousins, and Ivan Aleksandrovich Tihotski, the Russian tutor. Sixty-five years later, in Geneva, my sister Elena discovered Mme Conrad, now in her tenth decade. The ancient lady, skipping one generation, naïvely mistook Elena for our mother, then a girl of eighteen, who used to drive up with Mlle Golay from Vyra to Batovo, in those distant times whose long light finds so many ingenious ways to reach me.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  into his garden to gather a salad. I do not know what herbs it was composed of ; but I know that his wife did not Hve twenty-four hours after eating of it, whereat he appeared greatly afflicted, and played the disconsolate widower so well that no one ever suspected him of having killed her. In this way he revenged himself and saved the honour of his house.* I do not pretend, ladies, to laud the president's con- science ; but my design is to exhibit the levity of a woman, * In a manuscript French dictionary of the Beauties and Curiosities of Dauphin^, there is an article which says that " in the Rue des Clercs, at Grenoble, was formerly to be seen over the hall door of the house of Nicholas Prunier de Saint Andre, president of the Parliament of Grenoble, a stone escutcheon, supported by an angel, and bearing a lion de gueule on a field or. These arms were those of the Carles family, which became extinct in the seventeenth century. The angel that supported the escutcheon held the fore- fino-er of one hand to his mouth in a mysterious manner, as if to en- join secrecy. Geoffroy Carles, sole president of the Parliament of Grenoble in 1505, put it up over that house, which belonged to him. He, indeed, had long dissembled before he found an opportunity to be revenged for the infidelity of his wife, by causing her to be drowned by the mule she rode at the passage of a torrent. He had purposely ordered that the mule should be left several days without drink. This occurrence, which appeared in print in several places, was made the subject of one of the novels of that time, in which, however, the names of the persons concerned are not given. Geoffroy was so learned in the Latin tongue, and in the humanities, that Queen Anne of Bretagne, wife of Louis XII., selected him to teach that tongue and the belles lettres to her daughter Rende, who was afterwards Duchess of Ferrara. The same Geoffroy Carles was made knight of arms and of laws by Louis XIL in 1509." This is probably the person meant by the Queen of Navarre, though she gives a different account of the manner in which he put this wife to death. The story, however, appears to be older than the times of Geoffroy Carles, since it is related of a president of Provence in the Cent Notivelles Nouvelles (No. 47), which were composed between the vears 1456 and 1461, and first printed in Paris in i486. 328 THE HEPTAMERON OF T//E [Novel j<5 and the great patience and prudence of a man. Do not be offended, ladies, I beseech you, with the truth, Mhich sometimes tells against you as well as against the men ; for women, too, have their vices as well as their virtues.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. Let no one ascribe this sweat to natural weakness, nay, it is contrary to nature to sweat blood, but rather let him derive therefrom a declaration to us, that He was now obtaining the accomplishment of His prayer, namely, that He might purge by His blood the faith of His disciples, still convicted of human frailty. AUGUSTINE. (Prosp. ex Aug. Sent. 68.) Our Lord praying with a bloody sweat represented the martyrdoms which should flow from His whole body, which is the Church. THEOPHYLACT. Or this is proverbially said of one who has sweated intensely, that He sweated blood; the Evangelist then wishing to shew that He was moistened with large drops of sweat, takes drops of blood for an example. But afterwards finding His disciples asleep for sorrow, He upbraids them, at the same time reminding them to pray; for it follows, And when he rose from prayer and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping. CHRYSOSTOM. For it was midnight, and the disciples’ eyes were heavy from grief, and their sleep was not that of drowsiness but sorrow. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Ev. lib. iii. c. 4.) Now Luke has not stated after which prayer He came to His disciples, still in nothing does he disagree with Matthew and Mark. BEDE. Our Lord proves by what comes after, that He prayed for His disciples whom He exhorts by watching and prayer to be partakers of His prayer; for it follows, And he saith unto them, Why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. THEOPHYLACT. That is, that they should not be overcome by temptation, for not to be led into temptation is not to be overwhelmed by it. Or He simply bids us pray that our life may be quiet, and we be not cast into trouble of any kind. For it is of the devil and presumptuous, for a man to throw himself into temptation. Therefore James said not, “Cast yourselves into temptation,” but, When ye are fallen, count it all joy, (Jam. 1:2.) making a voluntary act out of an involuntary. 22:47–5347. And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. 48. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? 49. When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? 50. And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. 51. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him. 52. Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I. On the first head it is to he noted, that the Passion of Christ was very bitter for three reasons—(1) On account of the goodness of Him suffering. (2) On account of the indignity of His Passion. (3) On account of the cruelty of those carrying out the sentence. The goodness of Him suffering is manifest from three circumstances—Firstly, because He harmed no one: 1 S. Peter 2:22, “Who did no sin.” Secondly, because He most patiently sustained the injuries laid upon Him: 1 S. Peter 2:23, “Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again;” Jer. 11:19, “I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter.” Thirdly, He was doing good to all: Acts 10:38, “Who went about doing good;” S. John 10:32, “Many good works have I shewed you from My Father.” The indignity of His Death is manifest from three things—Firstly, he was judged, which was the most wicked of all: S. Luke 23:21, “But they cried, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him.” Secondly, because of the many indignities which He suffered: S. Matt. 27:27–30, “Gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand … And they spit upon Him.” Thirdly, because He was condemned to a most shameful death: Wisd. 2:20, “Let us condemn Him to a most shameful death.” The cruelty of those who crucified Him is seen from three things—Firstly, very cruelly flagellated Him before death: S. Matt. 27:26, “When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.” Secondly, in giving Him at the point of death vinegar and hyssop to drink: S. John 19:29, “They filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth;” Ps. 69, “In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” Thirdly, in wounding Him even after death: S. John 19:34, “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side.” II. On the second head it is to be noted, that the power of His Passion appeared in three things—(1) In heaven; it took away the light from it, S. Luke 23:44, 45, “There was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened.” (2) In earth, for it trembled, S. Matt. 27:51, “The earth did quake and the rocks rent.” (3) In Hades, who delivered up its dead, S. Matt. 27:52, “Many bodies of the Saints which slept arose.” The heavens declare the power of the Passion of Christ; the earth proclaims it; Hades announced it. Phil. 2:8, 9, “Obedient unto death … That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxiii. 1) He went slowly, that He might not seem to catch at an occasion of working a miracle, but to have it forced upon Him by others asking. Mary, it is said, arose quickly, and thus anticipated His coming. The Jews accompanied her: The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she arose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xlix. 16) The Evangelist mentions this to shew how it was that so many were present at Lazarus’ resurrection, and witness of that great miracle. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxiii. 1) She is more fervent than her sister. Forgetful of the crowd around her, and of the Jews, some of whom were enemies to Christ, she threw herself at her Master’s feet. In His presence all earthly things were nought to her; she thought of nothing but giving Him honour. THEOPHYLACT. But her faith seems as yet imperfect: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ALCUIN. As if to say, Lord, while Thou wert with us, no disease, no sickness dared to shew itself, amongst those with whom the Life deigned to take up His abode. AUGUSTINE. (de Verb. Dom. s. lii) O faithless assembly! Whilst Thou art yet in the world, Lazarus Thy friend dieth! If the friend dies, what will the enemy suppose? Is it a small thing that they will not serve Thee upon earth? lo, hell hath taken Thy beloved. BEDE. Mary did not say so much as Martha, she could not bring out what she wanted for weeping, as is usual with persons overwhelmed with sorrow. 11:33–4133. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. 35. Jesus wept. 36. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 37. And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? 38. Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. 39. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. 40. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? 41. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) It is not said that he assented to his friends who brought the tidings and wished to prevent the Master from coming, so that our Lord’s saying, Fear not, only believe, is not a rebuke for his want of faith, but was intended to strengthen the belief which he had already. But if the Evangelist had related, that the ruler of the synagogue joined the friends who came from his house, in saying that Jesus should not be troubled, the words which Matthew relates him to have said, namely, that the damsel was dead, would then have been contrary to what was in his mind. It goes on, And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. THEOPHYLACT. For Christ in His lowliness would not do any thing for display. It goes on, And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. (Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc.) But He Himself commands them not to wail, as if the damsel was not dead, but sleeping; wherefore it says, And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. PSEUDO-JEROME. It was told the ruler of the synagogue, Thy daughter is dead. But Jesus said to him, She is not dead, but sleepeth. Both are true, for the meaning is, She is dead to you, but to Me she is asleep. BEDE. (ubi sup.) For to men she was dead, who were unable to raise her up; but to God she was asleep, in whose purpose both the soul was living, and the flesh was resting, to rise again. Whence it became a custom amongst Christians, that the dead, who, they doubt not, will rise again, should be said to sleep. It goes on, And they laughed him to scorn. THEOPHYLACT. But they laugh at Him, as if unable to do any thing farther; and in this He convicts them of bearing witness involuntarily, that she was really dead whom He raised up, and therefore, that it would be a miracle if He raised her. BEDE. (ubi sup.) Because they chose rather to laugh at than to believe in this saying concerning her resurrection, they are deservedly excluded from the place, as unworthy to witness His power in raising her, and the mystery of her rising; wherefore it goes on, But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying.

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

  We may never “get over it.” But over time, we become more adept at breathing again and moving forward. As grief expert David Kessler writes: We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves. This is not an easy process, but I agree wholeheartedly with Kessler. Accepting whatever reality we’re in—no more summer boat rides together, no more inside jokes, no more random dance parties—is necessary to being fully present. If you find that you’re still not ready to accept what’s going on in your life right now, no judgment here. As valuable as acceptance is, there are going to be times when you’re just not there. And that’s OK, too. If this is the case, I love the following insight from trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté: “Acceptance also means accepting how downright difficult it can be to accept.” Accept that it’s really hard to accept and then stay open to accepting someday. And that’s enough for now. As his health hung in the balance, Dad was instrumental in teaching me even more about the power of acceptance. He gave me a trail of bread crumbs to follow as I watched him become softer and more selfaccepting—finally allowing himself to believe that he was good enough and had done a good enough job at parenting, working, friendship, marriage, and life. He stopped being so embarrassed by his bald head and, in particular, about his overall appearance. Did he accept that he was going to die? I think so, because at a certain point, even the smallest things became worthy of celebration. In Chapter 1, I talked about surrender and acceptance interchangeably, which, in a lot of ways, I think they are. Surrender and acceptance are the twin flames of leaning into our lives as they are. The main distinction, as I see it, is that acceptance happens in the head space, while surrender happens in the heart space. We focus our energy on what we can do, versus things we have no control over. And then we give it over to love, to grace, to the mystery. CARING FOR ACCEPTANCE Now you might be thinking, This is all well and good, but how do you actually put this advice into practice? Breathing helps. Meditating helps. Reading everything by Buddhist teacher Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance, helps. And all the tips mentioned throughout this chapter certainly help. But here’s what’s helped me more than anything else: Let go of the “shoulda, woulda, couldas”: You know the nasty little suckers I’m talking about.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  GREGORY. (Hom. xxiv.) By holding this last feast with seven disciples, he declares that they only who are full of the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, shall be with Him in the eternal feast. Time also is reckoned by periods of seven days, and perfection is often designated by the number seven. They therefore feast upon the presence of the Truth in that last banquet, who now strive for perfection. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxvii) Inasmuch, however, as He did not converse with them regularly, or in the same way as before, the Evangelist adds, This is now the third time that Jesus shewed Himself to His disciples, after that He was risen from the dead. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. cxxiii. 3) Which has reference not to manifestations, but to days; i. e. the first day after He had risen, eight days after that, when Thomas saw and believed, and this day at the draught of fishes; and thenceforward as often as He saw them, up to the time of His ascension. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Evang. iii. 25.) We find in the four Evangelists ten occasions mentioned, on which our Lord was seen after His resurrection: one at the sepulchre by the women; a second by the women returning from the sepulchre; a third by Peter; a fourth by the two going to1 Emmaus; a fifth in Jerusalem, when Thomas was not present; a sixth when Thomas saw Him; a seventh at the sea of Tiberias; an eighth by all the eleven on a mountain of Galilee, mentioned by Matthew; a ninth when for the last time He sat at meat with the disciples; a tenth when He was seen no longer upon earth, but high up on a cloud. 21:15–1715. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 16. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 17. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. THEOPHYLACT. The dinner being ended, He commits to Peter the superintendence over the sheep of the world, not to the others: So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? AUGUSTINE. Our Lord asked this, knowing it: He knew that Peter not only loved Him, but loved Him more than all the rest.

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

  “What a pity, Charlie!” I cried, “you’ll get more than a thousand dollars from your share of the cattle: I’ve told Bob, that I intend to share equally with all of you: this money must go back; but the thousand shall be sent to your mother I promise you:”— “Not on your life!”, cried the dying man, lifting himself up on one elbow: “This is my money: it shan’t go back to that oily sneak thief”: the effort had exhausted him; even in the dim light we could see that his face was drawn and gray: he must have understood this himself for I could just hear his last words: “Good-bye, boys!” his head fell back, his mouth opened: the brave boyish spirit was gone. I couldn’t control my tears: the phrase came to me: “I better could have lost a better man,” for Charlie was at heart a good fellow! I left Bent to carry back the money and arrange for Charlie’s burial, leaving Jo to guard the body: in an hour I was again with Bob and had told him everything. Ten days later we were in Kansas City where I was surprised by unexpected news. My second brother Willie, six years older than I was, had come out to America and hearing of me in Kansas had located himself in Lawrence as a real-estate agent; he wrote asking me to join him. This quickened my determination to have nothing more to do with cowpunching. Cattle too, we found, had fallen in price and we were lucky to get ten dollars or so a head for our bunch which made a poor showing from the fact that the Indians had netted all the best. There was about six thousand dollars to divide: Jo got five hundred dollars and Bent, Bob, Charlie’s mother and myself divided the rest. Bob told me I was a fool: I should keep it all and go down south again: but what had I gained by my two years of cowpunching? I had lost money and caught malarial fever; I had won a certain knowledge of ordinary men and their way of living and had got more than a smattering of economics and of medicine, but I was filled with an infinite disgust for a merely physical life. What was I to do now? I’d see Willie and make up my mind. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. Chapter IX.

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

  Immortality doesn’t mean a perpetual existence in time—it resides outside of time altogether. Heady stuff, I know. But these ideas make me think that even if we can’t pinpoint the exact location of our deceased loved ones on a GPS, they’re still out there, playing their unique “music” in some form or fashion. That’s because energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another. It’s the first law of thermodynamics, y’all! Energy never dies. The same is true for love. They’re the alpha and omega, the beginning and end. No matter what happened, who we lost, or how lost we feel, we are all an essential part of that energy and always will be. Every time we tap into the power of love—connecting to the goodness of it, the joy inherent in it, the peace that emanates from it—we are connecting to the never-ending energy of the ones we’ve lost. THE BIG QUESTIONS Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? What happens when we die—do we just stop existing, or is there an afterlife? If we go somewhere, is Dad there? What about God and my cat Crystal? Your big questions might look different than mine, just as your shit pickles may look different than mine. Nevertheless, our existential longing becomes more urgent when life falls apart or when death or grief come knocking. And yet, faith is something many of us struggle with, myself included. But as someone who’s had serious doubts about trusting an invisible force, I’ve also had moments of clear knowing. For example, after my grandpa passed, I remember trying to piece together what happens when we die. I imagined that death was like a hidden room inside our house. The people we lost were still close to us in that room, we just couldn’t access them with our five senses. I didn’t fear death, because I was confident that it wasn’t final. I missed Grandpa. I missed my cat. But I knew that I’d see them again. And that one day, I’d be able to access that room. Unbeknownst to me at the time, in the 1910 sermon delivered after King Edward VII died, an Oxford divinity scholar named Henry Scott Holland declared: Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. . . . There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

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

  12. Saints and the Protestant Reformation 88 The Reformation’s Impact on Women The voices of Protestant leaders and theologians did not, of course, ref lect the views of ordinary people. They continued to live in an atmosphere saturated with saints and to observe feast days and festivals. Women, too, resisted the social and cultural changes that went along with theologians’ attempts to demote the Virgin Mary and other female saints. During pregnancy and childbirth, the comfort that women derived from the arrival of a local relic of the Virgin or Saint Anne was a powerful social and emotional force. Ceremonies surrounding childbirth were also difficult to shed, such as the practice of “churching,” or celebrating a woman’s purification and return to the community 40 days after giving birth. Protestants rejected the need for purification, but in some communities, the celebration remained a form of thanksgiving for the mother’s survival and health. It also became used as a form of social control: Churching ceremonies were forbidden to unwed mothers in some Lutheran areas, while in England, unwed mothers were only allowed to celebrate their churching if they named the father and dressed in penitential garb. Cultural views of the Virgin Mary did change noticeably in Protestant areas during the 16th century—part of a larger social debate about the danger of “disorder” from powerful or unmarried women. Increasingly, women’s primary role was seen as marriage and motherhood; there was now no celibate path to a religious career available in most Protestant regions. In comparison with their medieval counterparts, who had more freedom in social spheres and business endeavors, women in the Reformation experienced more restricted opportunities.

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

  153 20. Josephine Butler: Victorian Feminist opinions, however well informed. Josephine was further driven to scorn at their fellows’ hypocritical treatment of women, whom they pursued, seduced, then abandoned and castigated as “fallen women.” She took an interest in several of these poor women, even bringing some into the Butler household. In 1857, 5 years into their marriage, they moved to Cheltenham College. Josephine had the last of their three sons there and began working to expand women’s access to education at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She soon had a daughter, Eva. But the family was devastated when 5-year- old Eva died after falling from an upper f loor in their home. It’s impossible to overstate the effect Eva’s death had on the Butlers, especially her mother. After 2 bleak years, they left Cheltenham for Liverpool, where George became headmaster at Liverpool College. Driven by her consuming grief, Josephine sought an outlet in being “of use” to others in pain. She could have joined other well-heeled matrons in a benevolent society, but she wanted to help the truly desperate—those deemed unfit for charity by those “respectable” benevolent society ladies for reasons they saw as unbefitting their model of the “deserving poor.” Josephine made no moral judgments about those who needed help. Battling the Contagious Diseases Acts Josephine had learned that many women, to stave off utter destitution, worked as prostitutes—that is, until they caught venereal diseases from their clients and were thrown out to starve. Once a woman was in the later stages of syphilis, no refuge or charity would help her—except the Butlers. They began by taking in and caring for a few individuals, who lived with them for weeks or months until their deaths. Eventually, the Butlers founded several respite homes for prostitutes, known collectively as the House of Rest. By the fall of 1869, other prominent women’s activists were urging her to take on leadership of a new campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act (CDA) of 1866. It was a delicate and dangerous task that could endanger her husband’s career and her own reputation.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  A group of white Australian women writers invited me to give the keynote address on “The Language of Difference” at a women’s writing conference held in Melbourne as part of the 150-year celebration of the founding of the state of Victoria. These are my remarks: I am here upon your invitation, a Black African-American woman speaking of the language of difference. We come together in this place on the 150th anniversary of the state of Victoria, an Australian state built upon racism, destruction, and a borrowed sameness. We were never meant to speak together at all. I have struggled for many weeks to find your part in me, to see what we could share that would have meaning for us all. When language becomes most similar, it becomes most dangerous, for then differences may pass unremarked. As women of good faith we can only become familiar with the language of difference within a determined commitment to its use within our lives, without romanticism and without guilt. Because we share a common language which is not of our own making and which does not reflect our deeper knowledge as women, our words frequently sound the same. But it is an error to believe that we mean the same experience, the same commitment, the same future, unless we agree to examine the history and particular passions that lie beneath each other’s words. When I say I am Black, I mean I am of African descent. When I say I am a woman of Color, I mean I recognize common cause with American Indian, Chicana, Latina, and Asian-American sisters of North America. I also mean I share common cause with women of Eritrea who spend most of each day searching for enough water for their children, as well as with Black South African women who bury 50 percent of their children before they reach the age of five. And I also share cause with my Black sisters of Australia, the Aboriginal women of this land who were raped of their history and their children and their culture by a genocidal conquest in whose recognition we are gathered here today. I have reached down deep inside of me to find what it was we could share, and it has been very difficult, because I find my tongue weighted down by the blood of my Aboriginal sisters that has been shed upon this earth. For the true language of difference is yet to be spoken in this place. Here that language must be spoken by my Aboriginal sisters, the daughters of those indigenous peoples of Australia with whom each one of you shares a destiny, but whose voices and language most of you here have never heard.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  who am ageless and half-grown and still seeking my sisters witches in Dahomey wear me inside their coiled cloths as our mother did mourning. I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic and the noon’s new fury with all your wide futures promised I am woman and not white. Coniagui Women The Coniagui women wear their flesh like war bear children who have eight days to choose their mothers it is up to the children who must decide to stay. Boys burst from the raised loins twisting and shouting from the bush secret they run beating the other women avoiding the sweet flesh hidden near their mother’s fire but they must take her blood as a token the wild trees have warned them beat her and you will be free on the third day they creep up to her cooking pot bubbling over the evening’s fire and she feeds them yam soup and silence. “Let us sleep in your bed” they whisper “Let us sleep in your bed” they whisper “Let us sleep in your bed” but she has mothered before them. She closes her door. They become men. Chain News item: Two girls, fifteen and sixteen, were sent to foster homes, because they had borne children by their natural father. Later, they petitioned the New York courts to be returned to their parents, who, the girls said, loved them. And the courts did so. I Faces surround me that have no smell or color no time only strange laughing testaments vomiting promise like love but look at the skeleton children advancing against us beneath their faces there is no sunlight no darkness no heart remains no legends to bring them back as women into their bodies at dawn. Look at the skeleton children advancing against us we will find womanhood in their eyes as they cry which of you bore me will love me will claim my blindness as yours and which of you marches to battle from between my legs? II On the porch outside my door girls are lying like felled maples in the path of my feet I cannot step past them nor over them their slim bodies roll like smooth tree trunks repeating themselves over and over until my porch is covered with the bodies of young girls. Some have a child in their arms. To what death shall I look for comfort? Which mirror to break or mourn? Two girls repeat themselves in my doorway their eyes are not stone. Their flesh is not wood nor steel but I can not touch them. Shall I warn them of night or offer them bread or a song? They are sisters. Their father has known them over and over. The twins they carry are his. Whose death shall we mourn in the forest unburied? Winter has come and the children are dying. One begs me to hold her between my breasts Oh write me a poem mother