Tag Archives: death
Grief
I can’t make the BBC embed code work with WordPress, but here’s the link: LINK If you have eight minutes, it’s a really helpful little video.
I can’t be funny.
This is an excerpt of a letter Will Rogers wrote about the death and funeral of his sister Maude sometime in the early 1920s. The sadness is compounded because the poor man felt he had to hide from his public persona. From Will Rogers: His Story As Told By His Wife, by Betty Rogers, © …
Silence
“When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground, it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or when a picture falls off the wall, it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it’s completely silent. You would think that for something so …
Dawn
Death is not extinguishing the light It is simply putting out the lamp Because the dawn has come. ~Rabindranth Tagore
“No need to fear it…”
What I love about Ringo is that he doesn’t hide what he wants to say beneath layers of cryptic metaphors. It’s a certain courage you don’t find often. Anyway, this is a song about death that always lifts my spirits. Full lyrics HERE.
“I can forgive them…”
Excerpt from Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor, ©1985
Given Back
Excerpted from The Holy Man by Susan Trott ©1995: Chapter 8: Grieving Man “I have lost my wife,” he told Joe (the Holy Man) when Joe invited him to sit down. “She has been taken from me. She is gone. I loved her so much. Now I will never see her again.” “Did she die?” …
On Silver Wings
Last night I dreamed our neighbor had big silver Angel wings, and was ascending to heaven in a bright column of light. I was waving at her, no sadness, and shouting “Goodbye, Shera! Thanks for coming!” I know it wasn’t a Vision From on High. I was thinking of this song and of her before …
Euthanasia
May you always do for others And let others do for you It’s the second line that’s the hard one. I don’t know how I feel about euthanasia. I have a basic reverence for life that screams “No!”, but… Our neighbor across the street is dying. She’s just a shell now; her body lives on, …
I’ll see you on the other side
Our culture doesn’t accept death gracefully. Dylan Thomas famously advised: Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Death notices frequently contain the phrase “lost his fight,” as if death were a defeat, a moral failure of some sort. I watched our friend and neighbor being loaded …
Roles
Our neighbor across the street is dying. She was told she had two to three months to live, and it’s been two. Today, as her time is drawing to a close, there was a lot of activity at her house. The difference in genders was striking.. The women popped out of the cars, bouquets in …
Good Grief
The Huffington Post has an article titled If There Were Greeting Cards for Grief, and this is one of them. You can see the others HERE. They’re very poignant and well done.
I Will Be
“Tomorrow, I will continue to be. But you will have to be very attentive to see me. I will be a flower, or a leaf. I will be in these forms and I will say hello to you. If you are attentive enough, you will recognize me, and you may greet me. I will be …
Connections
I used to work in the Alzheimer’s ward of a nursing home, and we had one resident there who had once been a featured dancer with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. I used to dance sometimes just to hear him laugh and clap and shout “Go, Cat, Go!” He told me one time, “I know my …
Abbie's Tree House 