I made Nell a mouth from the sleeve of my black dress. The cloth held the shape of my elbow when I cut it free. I laid it over the lower half of her face and stitched around the edges with red thread. The book said to leave the lips open. The dead would have things to say before morning.
I am standing at the kitchen sink at 6:40 in the morning, rinsing a coffee cup in the dark, and there it is, whole and settled, as if it had been waiting behind the faucet for years. Every day, I cry a little bit more. I am sixty-one years old, and I have lived long enough to know that a sentence like this one does not visit at random. It comes because it is true. It stays because tomorrow it will be truer still.
The Sunday death notices all carry the same sentence. She died peacefully at home, surrounded by her loving family, after a courageous battle with cancer. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, after a courageous battle with Alzheimer’s. The names change. The sentence does not. It makes three claims. The death was peaceful. The family was present. The dying person fought. A reporter would have to verify all three. Nobody verifies them now, because nobody is paid to.
The commands arrive early. They arrive in childhood, in the voices of parents and teachers and coaches and older relatives, and they are delivered with the same authority as instructions about traffic and hot stoves. Cry later. Hold it in. Do not show your emotions. Do not embarrass us. Be strong. Be brave. Be a man. There will be time for that later. Not here. Not now. Not in front of people.
Content Note: This book contains accounts of suicide, suicidal crisis, and the deaths of family members, friends, and companion animals. Part Five includes detailed accounts of suicidal ideation and completed suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by phone or text at 988. The Crisis Text Line is available by texting HOME to 741741.
Continue reading → Cry Later: The Culture That Taught You Not to Grieve
It has taken me more than fifty years to write this book. That sentence appears in the author’s note, but it deserves to open this introduction because it explains everything that follows. The Wound Remains Faithful is not a thriller. It is not a mystery. It does not offer the satisfaction of solved cases or the comfort of justice delivered. It is a tragedy in the oldest and most precise sense of that word: an act of imagination in service of memory, written against the cultural instinct to forget.
Continue reading → The Wound Remains Faithful: A Tragedy of Nora
The connection between our animals and us can be an incredibly strong and tenacious tether. When we lose a good friend — who just happens to be a pet — we begin a grieving process that can, at times, feel painful and never-ending.
What about the other side of the grieving dyad? Do our animal friends miss us when we die? As I was pondering that question, I happened upon this image someone posted on Facebook: A dog despondent in sorrow and collapsed on what appears to be the fresh grave of his human friend. It’s a touching image that speaks to the deep connection we share with our animal comrades.
As we continue to mourn the death of Dr. Howard Stein, we are left to ponder the joy of knowing him and, in missing him, we begin the healing process by remembering the important lessons he taught us.
One of the most poignant conversations I had with him in the last few weeks of his life dealt with age and growing older. Howard reversed an important expectation for me, and I appreciate the reality of that sobering.
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