Grief

Passages

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

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• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  I did not look on my work as therapy, and still don't. Yet when I received Norman Bowker's letter, it occurred to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain. In any case, Norman Bowker's letter had an effect. It haunted me for more than a month, not the words so much as its desperation, and I resolved finally to take him up on his story suggestion. At the time I was at work on a new novel, Going After Cacciato, and one morning I sat down and began a chapter titled "Speaking of Courage." The emotional core came directly from Bowker's letter: the simple need to talk. To provide a dramatic frame, I collapsed events into a single time and place, a car circling a lake on a quiet afternoon in midsummer, using the lake as a nucleus around which the story would orbit. As he'd requested, I did not use Norman Bowker's name, instead substituting the name of my novel's main character, Paul Berlin. For the scenery I borrowed heavily from my own hometown. Wholesale thievery, in fact. I lifted up Worthington, Minnesota—the lake, the road, the causeway, the woman in pedal pushers, the junior college, the handsome houses and docks and boats and public parks—and carried it all a few hundred miles south and transplanted it onto the Iowa prairie. The writing went quickly and easily. I drafted the piece in a week or two, fiddled with it for another week, then published it as a separate short Story. Almost immediately, though, there was a sense of failure. The details of Norman Bowker's story were missing. In this original version, which I still conceived as part of the novel, I had been forced to omit the shit field and the rain and the death of Kiowa, replacing this material with events that better fit the book's narrative. As a consequence I'd lost the natural counterpoint between the lake and the field. A metaphoric unity was broken. What the piece needed, and did not have, was the terrible killing power of that shit field.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  682 OpyKtos, v. sub Θρᾷκιος. θρήν-ερως, wros, 6, 7, a querulous lover, Poll. 6. 189; cf. δύσερως. θρηνεύω, = θρηνέω, C.1. 4000, 12. θρηνέω, fut. --σω, Aesch., Soph.: aor., Eur. Tro. 111:—Med., vy. infr. 2: fut. -ἥσομαι (ἐν--) Or. Sib. 2. 158:—impers. in pf. pass., v. infr.: (Opjvos). To sing a dirge, to wail, Μοῦσαι δ᾽ évvea πᾶσαι, ἀμειβό- μεναι ὀπὶ καλῇ, θρήνεον Od. 24.61; τίς ὁ θρηνήσων ; Aesch. Ag. 1541; τίς. ἐσθ᾽ 6 θρηνῶν Ar. Nub. 1260; Op. πρὸς τύμβον Aesch. Cho. 926; πρὸς ἑαυτόν Isocr. 155 A:—c. acc. cogn., στονόεσσαν ἀοιδὴν .. ἐθρή- veov were singing a doleful dirge, Il. 24. 722; γόον Op. Aesch. Fr. 420; ὀξυτόνους @das Soph. Aj. 631; ἐπῳδάς Ib. 582; ὕμνους Op., of the nightingale, Ar. Av. 211; φθόγγους ἀλύρους Alex. ᾿᾽Ολύνθ. 1. 6 :—Pass., ἅλις μοι τεθρήνηται λόγοις Soph. Ph. 1400; ἱκανῶς τεθρήνηταὶ Luc. Catapl. 20. 2. c. acc. objecti, to wail for, lament, Op. πόνους Aesch, Pr. 615; θάνατον Plat. Phaedo 85 A; ὅσα τὸν ἐμὸν θρηνῶ πατέρα Soph. El. 94, cf. 530; τὸν φύντα Eur. Fr. 452 ;—so also Med., τόνδε θρηνεῖ- σθαι Aesch. Pr. 43 :—Pass. to be lamented, Soph. Aj. 852, Fr. 585. θρήνημα, τό, a lament, dirge, Eur. Or. 132, Hel. 174, etc. θρηνητέος, a, ov, verb. Adj. to be lamented, Greg. Naz. one must lament, Apollon. ap. Stob. 617. 55. θρηνητήρ, pos, 6, a mourner, wailer, Aesch. Pers. 937. θρηνητήριος, a, ον, -- θρηνητικός, δαί Op. Eust. 1372. 26. Opnvytys, οὔ, 6, --θρηνητήρ, Aesch. Ag. 1075. θρηνητικός, ή, Ov, inclined to lament, querulous, Arist. Eth. N.g. 11, : 2. of or for a dirge, αὔλημα, αὐλός Poll. 4. 73, 75; τὸ Op. matter for lament, Plut. 2.623 A. Adv. --κῶς, Poll. 6. 202. θρηνήτρια, 77, fem. of θρηνητήρ (v. θρηνῳδός), Theophylact. θρηνήτωρ, opos, 6, -εθρηνητήρ, Manetho 4. 190. θρηνολογέω, to lament, τινα C. I. (add.) 2113. ¢. θρῆνος, ὁ, (θρέομαι) a funeral-song, dirge, lament, like Lat. naenia, Gaelic coronach, 1]. 24. 721, Hdt. 2. 70, 85, and Trag.; θρῆνος οὗμός for me, Aesch, Pr. 388; εἰπεῖν .. θρῆνον θέλω ἐμὸν τὸν αὐτῆς Id. Ag. 1322. 2. a complaint, sad strain, h. Hom. 18.18, Pind., etc., and often in Prose :—in pl. lamentations, wailing, Pind., Trag., etc. ; θρήνων ᾧδάς Soph. ΕἸ. 88.—Fragments of θρῆνοι remain in Pind. Frr. 95-103. θρῆνυξ, =sq., Euphor. 35; Dor. θρᾶνυξ, Corinna in A. B. 1381. θρῆνυς, vos, 6, (@paw) a footstool, ὑποπόδιον, ὑπὸ δὲ θρῆνυν ποσὶν ἥσει Il. 14. 240, cf. Od. 19. 57; ν. ὑποπόδιον. II. in Il. 15. 729, Op. ἑπταπόδης the seven-foot bench, is the seat of the helmsman or the rowers. θρηνῳδέω, to sing a dirge over, τινά Eur. 1. A. 1176. θρηνῴδημα, τό, a dirge, lament, Schol. Soph. El. 92. θρηνώδης, es, (εἶδος) like a dirge, fit for a dirge, ἁρμονίαι Plat. Rep. 398 D, 411A; φθόγγος, μέλος Plut., etc.; τὸ Op. τῆς ψυχῆς mournful mood, Plut. 2. 822 C. 2. -- θρηνητικός, of persons, Plat. Legg. 792 A, cf. Rep. 606 A.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  The field was boiling. The shells made deep slushy craters, opening up all those years of waste, centuries worth, and the smell came bubbling out of the earth. Two rounds hit close by. Then a third, even closer, and immediately, off to his left, he heard somebody screaming. It was Kiowa— he knew that. The sound was ragged and clotted up, but even so he knew the voice. A strange gargling noise. Rolling sideways, he crawled toward the screaming in the dark. The rain was hard and steady. Along the perimeter there were quick bursts of gunfire. Another round hit nearby, spraying up shit and water, and for a few moments he ducked down beneath the mud. He heard the valves in his heart. He heard the quick, feathering action of the hinges. Extraordinary, he thought. As he came up, a pair of red flares puffed open, a soft blurry glow, and in the glow he saw Kiowa's wide- open eyes settling down into the scum. All he could do was watch. He heard himself moan. Then he moved again, crabbing forward, but when he got there Kiowa was almost completely under. There was a knee. There was an arm and a gold wrist-watch and part of a boot. He could not describe what happened next, not ever, but he would've tried anyway. He would've spoken carefully so as to make it real for anyone who would listen. There were bubbles where Kiowa's head should've been. The left hand was curled open; the fingers were filthy; the wristwatch gave off a green phosphorescent shine as it slipped beneath the thick waters. He would've talked about this, and how he grabbed Kiowa by the boot and tried to pull him out. He pulled hard but Kiowa was gone, and then suddenly he felt himself going, too. The shit was in his nose and eyes. There were flares and mortar rounds, and the stink was everywhere—it was inside him, in his lungs—and he could no longer tolerate it. Not here, he thought. Not like this. He released Kiowa's boot and watched it slide away. Slowly, working his way up, he hoisted himself out of the deep mud, and then he lay still and tasted the shit in his mouth and closed his eyes and listened to the rain and explosions and bubbling sounds. He was alone. He had lost his weapon but it didn't matter. All he wanted was a bath. Nothing else. A hot soapy bath. Circling the lake, Norman Bowker remembered how his friend Kiowa had disappeared under the waste and water. "I didn't flip out," he would've said. "I was cool. If things had gone right, if it hadn't been for that smell, I could've won the Silver Star."

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen—and maybe it did, anything's possible—even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened. Twenty years later, I can still see the sunlight on Lemon's face. I can see him turning, looking back at Rat Kiley, then he laughed and took that curious half step from shade into sunlight, his face suddenly brown and shining, and when his foot touched down, in that instant, he must've thought it was the sunlight that was killing him. It was not the sunlight. It was a rigged 105 round. But if I could ever get the story right, how the sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree, if I could somehow recreate the fatal whiteness of that light, the quick glare, the obvious cause and effect, then you would believe the last thing Curt Lemon believed, which for him must've been the final truth. Now and then, when I tell this story, someone will come up to me afterward and say she liked it. It's always a woman. Usually it's an older woman of kindly temperament and humane politics. She'll explain that as a rule she hates war stories; she can't understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore. But this one she liked. The poor baby buffalo, it made her sad. Sometimes, even, there are little tears. What I should do, she'll say, is put it all behind me. Find new stories to tell. I won't say it but I'll think it. I'll picture Rat Kiley's face, his grief, and I'll think, You dumb cooze. Because she wasn't listening. It wasn't a war story. It was a Jove story.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  As PFCs or Spec 4 s, most of them were common grunts and carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 pounds with its full 20-round magazine. Depending on numerous factors, such as topography and psychology, the riflemen carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines, usually in cloth bandoliers, adding on another 8.4 pounds at minimum, 14 pounds at maximum. When it was available, they also carried M-16 maintenance gear—rods and steel brushes and swabs and tubes of LSA oil—all of which weighed about a pound. Among the grunts, some carried the M-79 grenade launcher, 5.9 pounds unloaded, a reasonably light weapon except for the ammunition, which was heavy. A single round weighed 10 ounces. The typical load was 25 rounds. But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the unweighed fear. He was dead weight. There was no twitching or flopping. Kiowa, who saw it happen, said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag or something—just boom, then down—not like the movies where the dead guy rolls around and does fancy spins and goes ass over teakettle —not like that, Kiowa said, the poor bastard just flat-fuck fell. Boom. Down. Nothing else. It was a bright morning in mid-April. Lieutenant Cross felt the pain. He blamed himself. They stripped off Lavender's canteens and ammo, all the heavy things, and Rat Kiley said the obvious, the guy's dead, and Mitchell Sanders used his radio to report one U.S. KIA and to request a chopper. Then they wrapped Lavender in his poncho. They carried him out to a dry paddy, established security, and sat smoking the dead man's dope until the chopper came. Lieutenant Cross kept to himself. He pictured Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her. When the dustoff arrived, they carried Lavender aboard. Afterward they burned Than Khe. They marched until dusk, then dug their holes, and that night Kiowa kept explaining how you had to be there, how fast it was, how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement. 2K OK ok

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Inside, the first thing I noticed was the smell, thick and sweet, like something sprayed out of a can. The viewing room was empty except for Linda and my father and me. I felt a rush of panic as we walked up the aisle. The smell made me dizzy. I tried to fight it off, slowing down a little, taking short, shallow breaths through my mouth. But at the same time I felt a funny excitement. Anticipation, in a way—that same awkward feeling as when I'd walked up the sidewalk to ring her doorbell on our first date. I wanted to impress her. I wanted something to happen between us, a secret signal of some sort. The room was dimly lighted, almost dark, but at the far end of the aisle Linda's white casket was illuminated by a row of spotlights up in the ceiling. Everything was quiet. My father put his hand on my shoulder, whispered something, and backed off. After a moment I edged forward a few steps, pushing up on my toes for a better look. It didn't seem real. A mistake, I thought. The girl lying in the white casket wasn't Linda. There was a resemblance, maybe, but where Linda had always been very slender and fragile-looking, almost skinny, the body in that casket was fat and swollen. For a second I wondered if somebody had made a terrible blunder. A technical mistake: pumped her too full of formaldehyde or embalming fluid or whatever they used. Her arms and face were bloated. The skin at her cheeks was stretched out tight like the rubber skin on a balloon just before it pops open. Even her fingers seemed puffy. I turned and glanced behind me, where my father stood, thinking that maybe it was a joke—hoping it was a joke—almost believing that Linda would jump out from behind one of the curtains and laugh and yell out my name. But she didn't. The room was silent. When I looked back at the casket, I felt dizzy again. In my heart, I'm sure, I knew this was Linda, but even so I couldn't find much to recognize. I tried to pretend she was taking a nap, her hands folded at her stomach, just sleeping away the afternoon. Except she didn't Jook asleep. She looked dead. She looked heavy and totally dead. I remember closing my eyes. After a while my father stepped up beside me. "Come on now," he said. "Let's go get some ice cream."

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The disputes with Agricola and Lemnius were not the only ones in which Luther’s friendship with Melanchthon was put under strain. In 1536, Conrad Cordatus had become involved in arguments first with Cruciger and then with Melanchthon over the role of works in salvation. Luther emphatically took Melanchthon’s part, though his own view was closer to that of Cordatus. Luther was soon recommending him for a position at Eisleben, safely farther away from Wittenberg than Niemegk, where he currently was; WB 8, 3153, May 21, 1537. 63. WB 8, 3136, 3137, 3138, 3139; Vorgeschichte, 46–48, for a description of this very severe attack of stone: Luther was unable to pass water for ten or eleven days and experienced a state of euphoria before becoming deathly tired. He wrote to his wife that “God has performed miracles on me this night” and that his recovery was thanks to the prayers of others; WB 8, 3140, Feb. 27, 1537, 51:20–22. However, the attacks returned and he remained very ill, making his confession to Bugenhagen and expecting to die. 64. WB 9, 3509, July 2, 1540; Brecht, Luther, III, 209–10; WT 5, 5407 and 5565. Three people had been brought back to life through prayer: Katharina von Bora, Luther himself at Schmalkalden, and Melanchthon at Weimar. Myconius also claimed to have been saved from death by Luther’s prayer; WB 9, 3566, Jan. 9, 1541. 65. WB 10, 4028, Sept. 9, 1544, and Beilage . 66. WB 10, 4007, June 23, 1544; 4014, early Aug. 1544; and see also WS 54, 123ff, editor’s preface to Kurzes Bekenntnis vom heiligen Sakrament, 1544. As Luther wrote this doctrinal statement, which was directed ostensibly against the Zwinglians and not (as they feared) Bucer or Melanchthon, he had to hand his most powerful writings against the sacramentarians, Against the Heavenly Prophets, Sermon on the Holy Sacrament ( Sermon vom Sakrament, Dass diese Worte Christi “Das ist mein Leib” noch feste stehn [“That these words of Christ, ‘this is my body,’ still stand firm”]) and the Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper ( Grosses Bekenntnis, also known as Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis ). He was intentionally returning to these older works and to formulations that he, and not Melanchthon, had made; these were also the works (especially the Grosses Bekenntnis ) that, after Luther’s death, ultraloyalist Lutherans would regard as nonnegotiable, encapsulating their position: WS 26, 249. 67. WB 10, 3984, April 21, 1544, 556:14–16; 34. 68. WS 59, “Sermons 1544” [Aug. 3], 529ff: this sermon condemns holy living, chastity and so on as pure fleshly thinking and argues that the sacramentarians, who seem to be spiritual, are actually fleshly. 69.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  κείρω : fut. κερῶ Plat. Rep. 471 A, Ion. κερέω Il. 23. 146: aor. ἔκειρα Att., Ep. éxepoa 1]. 13. 546, Aesch. Supp. 665 (lyr.): pf. κέκαρκα (περι--) Luc. Symp. 32 :—Med., fut. κεροῦμαι Eur., Plat.: aor. ἐκειράμην Att., Ep. ἐκερσάμην Call. Fr. 311, Aesch. Pers. 952 (lyr.):—Pass., aor. 1 part. κερθείς Pind. P. 4. 146; aor. 2 subj. κἄρῃῇ Hdt. 4. 127, κἄρῆναι, xapeis Luc. Soloec. 6, Plut.: pf. κέκαρμαι Hdt. 2. 36, Att. plqpf. ἐκεκάρ- μην Luc. (From 4/KEP or KAP (or rather SKEP, SKAP, O. Norse skera, A. 5. scéran, O.H.G. skiru, schere, shear), as in fut. kep-@, aor. καρ-ἢναι, whence also κέρ-μα, κορ-μός, κουρ-ά, κοῦρ-ος, κερ- αἴζω; cf. Skt. sar, sri-nami (dirumpo, laedo), Si-ri (gladius), kar-tari (forfex) ; Lat. eur-tus, and perh. cul-ter (cf. Sab. cwris, quiris); Goth. hair-us (μάχαιρα), O. Norse hidr, O. Sax. her-v.) To cut the hair short, shear, clip, σοί τε κόμην κερέειν, as an offering to the river Spercheios, Il. 23.146, cf. Paus. I. 37, 3; «. ἐν χροὶ [τὰς τρίχας] to shave it close, Hdt. 4.175; ἀλόχων κείραντες ἔθειραν Eur. Hel. 1124 (lyr.) :—more commonly in Med. to cut off one’s hair or have it cut off, as was done in deep mourning (cf. κουράν, τοῦτο... γέρας οἷον ὀϊζυροῖσι βροτοῖσι, Kelpa- σθαί τε κόμην βαλέειν τ᾽ ἀπὸ δάκρυ παρειῶν Od. 4. 198, cf. 24. 46; see the rites at the funeral of Patroclus, Il. 23. 46, 135-153; so, πολύν σοι βοστρύχων πλόκαμον κεροῦμαι Eur. Tro. 11833; κείρομαι πενθήρη κόμην 14. Phoen. 326; so also absol. to cut off one’s hair, κείρασθε, συμ- πενθήσατ᾽ Id, H.F.1390; ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἡ πόλις ἐπένθησε καὶ ἐκείρατο Aeschin. 84.14, εἴς, ; ἄξιον ἣν ἐπὶ τῷδε τῷ τάφῳ κείρασθαι τῇ “Ἑλλάδι Lys. 196. | e κειμηλιάρχης τ Κέκροψ.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Kathleen seemed nervous. She squinted at me, her hands fluttering. "Listen, this is stupid," she said, "you can't even hardly get wet. How can you swim out there?" "T'll manage." "But it's not ... I mean, God, it's not even water, it's like mush or something." She pinched her nose and watched me wade out to where the water reached my knees. Roughly here, I decided, was where Mitchell Sanders had found Kiowa's rucksack. I eased myself down, squatting at first, then sitting. There was again that sense of recognition. The water rose to mid- chest, a deep greenish brown, almost hot. Small water bugs skipped along the surface. Right here, I thought. Leaning forward, I reached in with the moccasins and wedged them into the soft bottom, letting them slide away. Tiny bubbles broke along the surface. I tried to think of something decent to say, something meaningful and right, but nothing came to me. I looked down into the field. "Well," I finally managed. "There it is." My voice surprised me. It had a rough, chalky sound, full of things I did not know were there. I wanted to tell Kiowa that he'd been a great friend, the very best, but all I could do was slap hands with the water. The sun made me squint. Twenty years. A lot like yesterday, a lot like never. In a way, maybe, I'd gone under with Kiowa, and now after two decades I'd mostly worked my way out. A hot afternoon, a bright August sun, and the war was over. For a few moments I could not bring myself to move. Like waking from a summer nap, feeling lazy and sluggish, the world collecting itself around me. Fifty meters up the field one of the old farmers stood watching from along the dike. The man's face was dark and solemn. As we stared at each other, neither of us moving, I felt something go shut in my heart while something else swung open. For a second, I wondered if the old man might walk over to exchange a few war stories, but instead he picked up a shovel and raised it over his head and held it there for a time, grimly, like a flag, then he brought the shovel down and said something to his friend and began digging into the hard, dry ground. I stood up and waded out of the water. "What a mess," Kathleen said. "All that gunk on your skin, you look like ... Wait'll I tell Mommy, she'll probably make you sleep in the garage." "You're right," I said. "Don't tell her." I pulled on my shoes, took my daughter's hand, and led her across the field toward the jeep. Soft heat waves shimmied up out of the earth. When we reached the jeep, Kathleen turned and glanced out at the field. "That old man," she said, "is he mad at you or something?" "I hope not." "He looks mad."

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  épo-Kdpvov, τό, the mountain-nut, a tree which grows near the Black Sea, Strab. 546: others read ὀρόκορνον, Lat. cornws montana. Spopat, Dep. fo watch, keep watch and ward, only used in comp. with II. meal made etc. ; τὴν .. ῥέξαι θεὸς ὥρορεν ἔργον Od. 23. 222; so, τόλμα μοι γλῶσ- gp ἐπί which however is always separated from the Verb by tmesis, αἰπόλια 1078 πλατέ᾽ αἰγῶν .. ἐσχατιῇ βόσκοντ᾽, ἐπὶ δ᾽ ἀνέρες ἐσθλοὶ ὄρονται Od. 14. 104; so, ἐπὶ δ᾽ ἀνέρες ἐσθλοὶ ὄροντο, οἶνον οἰνοχοεῦντες 32. 471: ἐπὶ δ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἐσθλὸς ὀρώρει Μηριόνης 1]. 23. 112.—This interpr. is given by Schol. Od. 14. 104 (cf. Hesych.), and maintained by Curt. and others, so that it should come from 4/OP, οὖρος, y. sub οὖρος B; while Buttm. refers all the passages to 4/OP, ὄρνυμι. ὀρο-μᾶλίδες, αἱ, (μῆλον B) Dor. for ὀρομηλίδες, a kind of wild apples, Theocr. 5. 943 vulg. ὀριμαλίδες. ὄρον, τό, a wooden implement for pressing grapes, Aesch. (Fr. 105), ap. Harp., Suid. ; ὄρος in Poll. 7. 150., 10. 130. ὀρο-νύχιον, τό, a night-watch, Phot. ὀρο-πέδιον, τό, a mountain-plain, table-land, δι᾿ ὀροπεδίων Strab. 292, 522, 508, 706; another form ὀριπέδιον is given, Ib. 272. ὄρος, Ion. οὖρος, cos, τό: gen. pl. ὀρέων is required by the metre in Eur. Bacch. 718 and oft. occurs in MSS. of prose writers; but ὀρῶν is required in Aesch. Pr. 719, 811, Fr. 379, and occurs in Mss. of Plat. Criti. 111 C, al. : the Gramm. differ as to the true Att. form:—a mountain, hill, Hom., etc.: he has both sing. and pl., in the common as well as in the Ion. form, οὔρεα μακρά, νιφύεντα etc.; so also Hes., who (Theogn. 129) calls moun- tains children of Tata,—yeivato δ᾽ Οὔρεα μακρά, θεῶν χαρίεντας ἐναύ- λους :—Hadt. prefers the Ion. form, but in all Mss. the common one is sometimes found, as I. 43., 2. 8. (Hence ὄρ-ειος, ὀρ-εινός, ὀρ-ειτής, ὀρεύς, ᾿Ορ-έστης ; cf. Skt. gir-is, Zd. gair-is, Slav. gor-a, all of the same signf., cf, ala, γαῖα : perh. also Βορέας meant the mountain-wind, and “Ὑπερβόρεοι those who dwelt beyond the Rhipaean mountains, which would imply a Root TOP or FOP; v. Curt. Gr. Et. p. 474.) dpés, later éppés (v. infr.): οὖρος Nic. Th. 708 ; 6:—the watery or serous part of milk, whey, ναῖον δ᾽ ὀρῷ ἄγγεα πάντα Od. 9. 222; ὀρὸν πίνων 17. 225, cf. Arist. H. A. 3. 20, 6, Eust. Od. ll. Ὁ: 2. the watery part of the blood, Plat. Tim. 83 D. 8. the watery part of tar, ὀρὸς πίσσης Theophr. H.P. 3.9, 2; elsewhere ὀρόπισσα, ὀρρόπισσα, v. Ducange. 4. ὀρρὸς σπερματικός, Plut. 2. gog E.—The form éppés first occurs in Arist., unless it be read in Hipp. Acut. 383. (Cf. Skt. saras (also saram, water), Lat. serum; cf. τυρός.)

• From Shunned (2018)

  I’ll be right behind you.”) Despite my protests, he’d once forced me to help him dissect a frog in the garage and released me only after I threw up next to his surgical center. When he started dating, I was often the designated chaperone, which fostered an understandable disdain for my company, as he’d have to pay for three movie tickets and three dinners. But I always grew fond of his girlfriends and they of me, and I could always be bribed to look the other way when they kissed. Still, any interest Randy took in my life always seemed an aside. He’d never expressed any explicit approval or disapproval in what I was doing—as long as I was doing well in The Truth, which, until now, had been a given. “Randy, can you just accept that you don’t understand but support me anyway?” I knew it was a long shot, but I had to pose the question. “Is that too much to ask?” The words hadn’t left my mouth when Randy let out a huge, chest-caving gasp. He bent over and set his face in both hands. It startled me to see such an intense physical response from my brother, and it rattled my defenses loose. He sobbed a few more times and then sat up, tears rolling down his red, flushed face. The last time I’d seen him cry like this had been at Dad’s baptism. I removed my sunglasses. A titanic pool of emotion filled the car, slapping us both. I realized I was crying, too. “There is no way in the world I can support what you’re doing,” he said. “Linda, you’re leaving your husband. You’re breaking up a family. And for what?” “For what?” I repeated the question. Would he be able to hear my answer? If I spoke about doubts and yearning, it would sound like gibberish. Everything I was doing was fresh and scary. I’d vacillated enough and had now switched to action mode. I was willing to trust that my path would get clearer as I moved forward. But I was talking to someone who was not used to living with big questions. A teardrop dangled from Randy’s chin. I reached into the backseat and pulled out a small box of Kleenex. We both dabbed our faces, and Randy blew his nose. “Don’t you remember how terrible it was, Lindy, when we were little and Dad wasn’t in The Truth? Maybe you were too little to remember. Mom and Dad would argue over what we were and weren’t allowed to do with the holidays and school activities. And all those arguments about the existence of God and evolution around the dinner table. It was terrible. Don’t you remember?” “Yes, I remember.” But it was clear Randy’s memories carried a vivid pain unique to his own experiences.

• From Shunned (2018)

  The next morning, I awoke to a six o’clock alarm, peeled myself out of bed, stumbled into the shower, and cried. There was one more thing to do before I could allow myself to be strangled by grief: drive my parents to the airport, one hour away. The house was hollow and dark. Mom sat in the passenger seat, and Dad sat behind her. I could see his face in the rearview mirror. Their advancing age was apparent in their slower movements, in my need to speak loudly to them and repeat phrases several times. The conversation was amiable, covering the weather, service at their hotel, and mercifully few questions about my plans for the future. I could sense their desire and helplessness to assist me. All of my physical needs were met, and I had a community that would keep a protective eye on me. “Please thank all your friends for taking care of us,” Dad said. “Really, Lindy, no one would let us lift a finger.” “I do have great friends.” “That was a beautiful service,” Dad continued. “It made us wish that we had known Bob better,” Mom said. “When you brought him to our house, we could tell he was a great guy,” Dad said. “But he was so unassuming, we would never have guessed he was so accomplished.” “And loved by so many,” Mom said. “You both are.” “Yes,” I said, choking out the next sentence, sensing a well of sadness bubbling to the surface. “I’m still in shock, wondering when I’m going to awaken from this bad dream. He was so special to me.” I turned the car toward the airport exit. “I know it hasn’t really hit me that he is gone.” My eyes pooled with tears. I noticed Mom opening her mouth to speak, then stop herself. “What’s on your mind, Mom?” “Wouldn’t it be nice, Lindy, if you could be there, in the New System, to greet Bob when he’s resurrected?” She still hoped I would return to the religion so I could survive the inevitable march of the faceless hooded riders and make it into paradise. But her words did not ignite a storm in my heart. I had just lived through Armageddon, and the intensity of that had left me in awe of the mysterious ways in which life unfolds and the inescapable truth that everyone dies eventually. What else could I be sure of anymore? Only the power and presence of love. Under the circumstances, to be angry about anything seemed silly. What did it matter if my mom chose now to preach, which I saw as her way of expressing love?

• From Shunned (2018)

  How could it not be? We’ve all seen the news reports, and I’ve felt the distant tremors from California fault lines. Until one day you feel bedrock rattling underfoot and realize you’re at the epicenter, that nothing is solid, and you comprehend just how vulnerable you are. Something bigger than you is at work, and the only way out is through. The formal service concluded, and we shared good food, wine, and conversation, which was how Bob would have wanted it. My heart had cracked open, pacified by the outreach of each person. A tender, otherworldly feeling carried me through the day, and I was surprised at my capacity to remember names. My girlfriends took turns looking after Mom and Dad, without my being aware of it. Every time I glanced their way, I noticed them in conversation with different people. In this way, my parents got a sense of my life now as people from my consulting, writing, spiritual, and volunteer communities came forward. They may not have been Witnesses, but they were all true-blue friends. After lunch, there were open-mic tributes and a succession of people came forward to tell personal stories about Bob that ranged from poignant to hilarious. Will spoke about how his father always made time for him, and thanked me for everything I did throughout his dad’s illness, describing the captain’s log, as we called the diary where I tracked his medications, symptoms, and other details. The whole affair lasted several hours; then people lingered on the sunny patio and in the bar. I sat between my parents as we loitered on a bar couch and I held each of their hands, dazed and tired. They were the only people in attendance who had known me my whole life, yet they understood me the least. Still, it was good to have people there who’d known me before I was the way I am now. Within the hour, friends and family gathered back at my house for dinner. I was surprised when my parents agreed to come. I didn’t question it, just welcomed them in and gave them a tour as others warmed lasagna and tossed a salad. It took Bob’s death to bring my parents to my home. (Thanks to the death exemption, that week I also received kind calls from Lory, Randy, and Ross.) They admired the peaceful canyon setting, the artwork, and the clematis overtaking the trellis. Dad said it was good to see that his daughter was well looked after. Following dinner, one of my friends gave my parents a lift to their nearby hotel and I popped a sleeping pill.

• From Shunned (2018)

  I took in the forlorn faces of gifted artists and accomplished writers, housewives, scholars, spiritual teachers, captains of industry, of our accountant, car mechanic, and home contractor. Over the years, our respective communities had coalesced and I was comforted by the attendance of these, my companions in grief. Clutching a tissue and getting my balance at the podium, I cleared my throat and heard my gravelly voice float though the sound system. I thanked everyone for coming to comfort one another and celebrate Bob’s life. It had been twelve days since Bob’s death, and one word kept coming to my mind to describe his essence: luminous. “Luminous,” I repeated, with more heft, looking up at the high beams. He was a shimmering, radiant light. Several heads nodded. I shared that once he got clear, Bob was not afraid to die, only sad at leaving us. He had no unfinished business, no grudges, no words left unsaid. He died free of pain, in a state of grace. I introduced Ann, who was the first of eight people, including his children, to eulogize Bob, and took my seat in the front row, between Bob’s sister and my stepson. The strain of the proceeding weeks had melted twenty pounds off my frame, and I could feel my sit bones press into the seat cushion while Ann opened with an ecumenical blessing. A sacred, tender reverence filled the room as each person came forward, transparent with deep emotion, and shared their remembrances. Laughter bubbled up many times, reflecting Bob’s capacity to dance with the divine without taking life too seriously. Bob was not a religious man, though all who knew him would agree he was a deeply spiritual person, which is to say he was endlessly fascinated by the mysteries of life and pursued enlightenment without ever expecting to fully achieve it. Raz said that while it wasn’t always obvious what he was doing, the main point of Bob’s life was to peel back the layers from his heart, to more fully express love. I let the sentiments wash through me and felt deep gratitude for everything Bob taught me about love. Man, did we have fun together. With each story, I saw anew how much he meant to his friends and family. One person said Bob was like the floor—always there, steady, supportive. “You wake up each morning and count on the floor to be there. It just is.” My heart tightened with the truth of his absence, and I tamped down the coils of dread swirling in my belly, unable or unwilling to consider the myriad of bleak moments ahead, living without my best friend. This was the first epic transition in my adult life that was not a result of my deliberate intention. Before this, I had thought I understood that life and love are mysterious, not to be controlled, in the same way you know an earthquake is unwieldy and unpredictable.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  instance, about how Curt Lemon had gone trick-or-treating on Halloween. A dark, spooky night, and so Lemon put on a ghost mask and painted up his body all different colors and crept across a paddy to a sleeping village— almost stark naked, the story went, just boots and balls and an M-16—and in the dark Lemon went from hootch to hootch—ringing doorbells, he called it—and a few hours later, when he slipped back into the perimeter, he had a whole sackful of goodies to share with his pals: candles and joss sticks and a pair of black pajamas and statuettes of the smiling Buddha. That was the story, anyway. Other versions were much more elaborate, full of descriptions and scraps of dialogue. Rat Kiley liked to spice it up with extra details: "See, what happens is, it's like four in the morning, and Lemon sneaks into a hootch with that weird ghost mask on. Everybody's asleep, right? So he wakes up this cute little mama-san. Tickles her foot. "Hey, Mama-san,' he goes, real soft like. 'Hey, Mama-san—trick or treat!' Should've seen her face. About freaks. I mean, there's this buck naked ghost standing there, and he's got this M-16 up against her ear and he whispers, "Hey, Mama-san, trick or fuckin’ treat!' Then he takes off her pj's. Strips her right down. Sticks the pajamas in his sack and tucks her into bed and heads for the next hootch." Pausing a moment, Rat Kiley would grin and shake his head. "Honest to God," he'd murmur. "Trick or treat. Lemon—there's one class act." To listen to the story, especially as Rat Kiley told it, you'd never know that Curt Lemon was dead. He was still out there in the dark, naked and painted up, trick-or-treating, sliding from hootch to hootch in that crazy white ghost mask. But he was dead. In September, the day after Linda died, I asked my father to take me down to Benson's Funeral Home to view the body. I was a fifth grader then; I was curious. On the drive downtown my father kept his eyes straight ahead. At one point, I remember, he made a scratchy sound in his throat. It took him a long time to light up a cigarette. "Timmy," he said, "you're sure about this?" I nodded at him. Down inside, of course, I wasn't sure, and yet I had to see her one more time. What I needed, I suppose, was some sort of final confirmation, something to carry with me after she was gone. When we parked in front of the funeral home, my father turned and looked at me. "If this bothers you," he said, "just say the word. We'll make a quick getaway. Fair enough?" "Okay," I said. "Or if you start to feel sick or anything—" "Tl won't," I told him.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  I needed that kind of miracle. At some point I had come to understand that Linda was sick, maybe even dying, but I loved her and just couldn't accept it. In the middle of the summer, I remember, my mother tried to explain to me about brain tumors. Now and then, she said, bad things start growing inside us. Sometimes you can cut them out and other times you can't, and for Linda it was one of the times when you can't. I thought about it for several days. "All right," I finally said. "So will she get better now?" "Well, no," my mother said, "I don't think so." She stared at a spot behind my shoulder. "Sometimes people don't ever get better. They die sometimes." I shook my head. "Not Linda," I said. But on a September afternoon, during noon recess, Nick Veenhof came up to me on the school playground. "Your girlfriend," he said, "she kicked the bucket." At first I didn't understand. "She's dead," he said. "My mom told me at lunch-time. No lie, she actually kicked the goddang bucket." All I could do was nod. Somehow it didn't quite register. I turned away, glanced down at my hands for a second, then walked home without telling anyone. It was a little after one o'clock, I remember, and the house was empty. I drank some chocolate milk and then lay down on the sofa in the living room, not really sad, just floating, trying to imagine what it was to be dead. Nothing much came to me. I remember closing my eyes and whispering her name, almost begging, trying to make her come back. "Linda," I said, "please." And then I concentrated. I willed her alive. It was a dream, I suppose, or a daydream, but I made it happen. I saw her coming down the middle of Main Street, all alone. It was nearly dark and the street was deserted, no cars or people, and Linda wore a pink dress and shiny black shoes. I remember sitting down on the curb to watch. All her hair had grown back. The scars and stitches were gone. In the dream, if that's what it was, she was playing a game of some sort, laughing and running up the empty street, kicking a big aluminum water bucket. Right then I started to cry. After a moment Linda stopped and carried her water bucket over to the curb and asked why I was so sad. "Well, God," I said, "you're dead." Linda nodded at me. She was standing under a yellow streetlight. A nine-year-old girl, just a kid, and yet there was something ageless in her eyes—not a child, not an adult—yjust a bright ongoing everness, that same pinprick of absolute lasting light that I see today in my own eyes as Timmy smiles at Tim from the graying photographs of that time. "Dead," I said.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  At daybreak the platoon of eighteen soldiers formed into a loose rank and began tramping side by side through the deep muck of the shit field. They moved slowly in the rain. Leaning forward, heads down, they used the butts of their weapons as probes, wading across the field to the river and then turning and wading back again. They were tired and miserable; all they wanted now was to get it finished. Kiowa was gone. He was under the mud and water, folded in with the war, and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to someplace dry and warm. It had been a hard night. Maybe the worst ever. The rains had fallen without stop, and the Song Tra Bong had overflowed its banks, and the muck had now risen thigh-deep in the field along the river. A low, gray mist hovered over the land. Off to the west there was thunder, soft little moaning sounds, and the monsoons seemed to be a lasting element of the war. The eighteen soldiers moved in silence. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross went first, now and then straightening out the rank, closing up the gaps. His uniform was dark with mud; his arms and face were filthy. Early in the morning he had radioed in the MIA report, giving the name and circumstances, but he was now determined to find his man, no matter what, even if it meant flying in slabs of concrete and damming up the river and draining the entire field. He would not lose a member of his command like this. It wasn't right. Kiowa had been a fine soldier and a fine human being, a devout Baptist, and there was no way Lieutenant Cross would allow such a good man to be lost under the slime of a shit field. Briefly, he stopped and watched the clouds. Except for some occasional thunder it was a deeply quiet morning, just the rain and the steady sloshing sounds of eighteen men wading through the thick waters. Lieutenant Cross wished the rain would let up. Even for an hour, it would make things easier. But then he shrugged. The rain was the war and you had to fight it. Turning, he looked out across the field and yelled at one of his men to close up the rank. Not a man, really—a boy. The young soldier stood off by himself at the center of the field in knee-deep water, reaching down with

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  "Hey, step it up," I said. I almost had the courage to look at her. "You want popcorn or what?" The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness. In Vietnam, for instance, Ted Lavender had a habit of popping four or five tranquilizers every morning. It was his way of coping, just dealing with the realities, and the drugs helped to ease him through the days. I remember how peaceful his eyes were. Even in bad situations he had a soft, dreamy expression on his face, which was what he wanted, a kind of escape. "How's the war today?" somebody would ask, and Ted Lavender would give a little smile to the sky and say, "Mellow—a nice smooth war today." And then in April he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe. Kiowa and I and a couple of others were ordered to prepare his body for the dustoff. I remember squatting down, not wanting to look but then looking. Lavender's left cheekbone was gone. There was a swollen blackness around his eye. Quickly, trying not to feel anything, we went through the kid's pockets. I remember wishing I had gloves. It wasn't the blood I hated; it was the deadness. We put his personal effects in a plastic bag and tied the bag to his arm. We stripped off the canteens and ammo, all the heavy stuff, and wrapped him up in his own poncho and carried him out to a dry paddy and laid him down. For a while nobody said much. Then Mitchell Sanders laughed and looked over at the green plastic poncho. "Hey, Lavender," he said, "how's the war today?" There was a short quiet. "Mellow," somebody said. "Well, that's good," Sanders murmured, "that's real, real good. Stay cool now." "Hey, no sweat, I'm mellow." "Just ease on back, then. Don't need no pills. We got this incredible chopper on call, this once in a lifetime mind-trip." "Oh, yeah—mellow!" Mitchell Sanders smiled. "There it is, my man, this chopper gonna take you up high and cool. Gonna relax you. Gonna alter your whole perspective on this sorry, sorry shit." We could almost see Ted Lavender's dreamy blue eyes. We could almost hear him. "Roger that," somebody said. "I'm ready to fly." There was the sound of the wind, the sound of birds and the quiet afternoon, which was the world we were in. That's what a story does. The bodies are animated. You make the dead talk. They sometimes say things like, "Roger that." Or they say, "Timmy, stop crying," which is what Linda said to me after she was dead.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Here is the story-truth. He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole. I killed him. What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again. "Daddy, tell the truth," Kathleen can say, "did you ever kill anybody?" And I can say, honestly, "Of course not." Or I can say, honestly, "Yes." Field Trip A few months after completing "In the Field," I returned with my daughter to Vietnam, where we visited the site of Kiowa's death, and where I looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace or whatever else the land might offer. The field was still there, though not as I remembered it. Much smaller, I thought, and not nearly so menacing, and in the bright sunlight it was hard to picture what had happened on this ground some twenty years ago. Except for a few marshy spots along the river, everything was bone dry. No ghosts—just a flat, grassy field. The place was at peace. There were yellow butterflies. There was a breeze and a wide blue sky. Along the river two old farmers stood in ankle-deep water, repairing the same narrow dike where we had laid out Kiowa's body after pulling him from the muck. Things were quiet. At one point, I remember, one of the farmers looked up and shaded his eyes, staring across the field at us, then after a time he wiped his forehead and went back to work. I stood with my arms folded, feeling the grip of sentiment and time. Amazing, I thought. Twenty years. Behind me, in the jeep, my daughter Kathleen sat waiting with a government interpreter, and now and then I could hear the two of them talking in soft voices. They were already fast friends. Neither of them, I think, understood what all this was about, why I'd insisted that we search out this spot. It had been a hard two-hour ride from Quang Ngai City, bumpy dirt roads and a hot August sun, ending up at an empty field on the edge of nowhere. I took out my camera, snapped a couple of pictures, and stood gazing out at the field. After a time Kathleen got out of the jeep and stood beside me. "You know what I think?" she said. "I think this place stinks. It smells like ... God, I don't even know what. It smells rotten." "It sure does. I know that." "So when can we go?" "Pretty soon," I said.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  both hands as if chasing some object just beneath the surface. The boy's shoulders were shaking. Jimmy Cross yelled again but the young soldier did not turn or look up. In his hooded poncho, everything caked with mud, the boy's face was impossible to make out. The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier, which was exactly how Jimmy Cross had been trained to treat them, as interchangeable units of command. It was difficult sometimes, but he tried to avoid that sort of thinking. He had no military ambitions. He preferred to view his men not as units but as human beings. And Kiowa had been a splendid human being, the very best, intelligent and gentle and quiet-spoken. Very brave, too. And decent. The kid's father taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, where Kiowa had been raised to believe in the promise of salvation under Jesus Christ, and this conviction had always been present in the boy's smile, in his posture toward the world, in the way he never went anywhere without an illustrated New Testament that his father had mailed to him as a birthday present back in January. A crime, Jimmy Cross thought. Looking out toward the river, he knew for a fact that he had made a mistake setting up here. The order had come from higher, true, but still he should've exercised some field discretion. He should've moved to higher ground for the night, should've radioed in false coordinates. There was nothing he could do now, but still it was a mistake and a hideous waste. He felt sick about it. Standing in the deep waters of the field, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross began composing a letter in his head to the kid's father, not mentioning the shit field, just saying what a fine soldier Kiowa had been, what a fine human being, and how he was the kind of son that any father could be proud of forever. The search went slowly. For a time the morning seemed to brighten, the sky going to a lighter shade of silver, but then the rains came back hard and steady. There was the feel of permanent twilight. At the far left of the line, Azar and Norman Bowker and Mitchell Sanders waded along the edge of the field closest to the river. They were tall men, but at times the muck came to midthigh, other times to the crotch. Azar kept shaking his head. He coughed and shook his head and said, "Man, talk about irony. I bet if Kiowa was here, I bet he'd just laugh. Eating shit—tt's your classic irony." "Fine," said Norman Bowker. "Now pipe down." Azar sighed. "Wasted in the waste," he said. "A shit field. You got to admit, it's pure world-class irony."