15 Comments

This was a particularly good "Recollections". Thanks.

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Thank you!

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I knew an X once, and I miss him terribly. People like that are the ones who generally have the most umportant things to say, but so few people are ready to listen.

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So true. Those people are treasures.

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In my experience, yes, grief reconnects with previous griefs. And maybe it's because it's the time of year that Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring and Fall" runs through my head of repeat, but I wonder if reconnecting grief to grief is also a preview: it is the blight man was born for/it is Margaret you mourn for.

And if the grief bit is connected to the X bit, I'm sorry for your loss.

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Thank you. It was, but long ago. And I think you're right about the griefs connecting.

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I've been dealing with a lot of grief lately. A lot of what ifs and regrets. It's been difficult to get out of bed in the morning. I see this person and wonder what if they were the one on the other side of the bed. I can't say we were ever really close but we did talk close to 20 years ago now. Things were developing that were derailed. My life took another direction as did hers. The grief also comes from family. Seeing my siblings spending time with our father and their mothers with their children in tow. Years of memories made. Years I'll never have and never had the opportunity for. Not having my mother to talk to as an adult now is the biggest source of grief in my life. I'm sorry if this is a bit disjointed. It's really just spilling out at this point. I feel the tears forming. I'll end it here. This passage touched me in a way I wasn't expecting. Thank you.

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Not disjointed at all, or doesn't feel that way to me. More like lots of griefs overlapping and reinforcing and showing themselves to be facets of the same thing. Regrets — whether well-founded or not — and the loss of that parental voice and presence... those are two of the hardest things to deal with. Not least because regret is a form of grief, perhaps. Or at least allied to it. A feeling of irrevocable loss for something that might have been, instead of for something that was, and now is gone — or at least is out of reach. Imagined futures, or presents that might have come to pass and didn't, they're far more real than they sound. And I do think you can grieve for them too, and perhaps have to, or should. And I suspect all we can do with any of these griefs is let them pass through us and acknowledge their weight and hope that the process touches us for the better in some way. I hope you're doing okay.

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Thank you. I've been putting one foot in front of the other though the steps are unsteady at times. I think the reason this person has moved to the forefront of my mind recently is because they represent the "before."

Before the illness. Before the diagnosis. Before ALS took away the one person in my life. Maybe I am chasing this ideal. What I hoped my life had been instead. With some of that emotional support maybe I could have healed more at this point. Sometimes my walls crumble and I collapse but I'm always picking up the pieces each time. I'll continue on.

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LOVE the force of nature. The quiet force of the mountain, the unknown depths of the sea and the quiet below the sometimes choppy surface. Whoever X is, I want to meet him and be his friend. I would go to more gatherings if he was there.

And parents as a manual for life - oh lordy, my mom as instructions on how to go through a long life with wit and grace and stoicism; my dad on never reading the manual, because what do those guys know anyway?

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Ha, yes — and sometimes that "don't read the manual!" advice is actually what you need from a manual... that sounds like a good combination!

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Fear! It can be useful, when it takes you to levels where you would never have arrived without it!!! It can also be useless, if it blocks your hands at your feet and you can't even breathe, where it would be better to act!!! .... Who knows what it depends on ...

About “ The Force of Nature “. It is true that some people, whom we meet, cannot be called ordinary or casual people in life! It seems that they came especially for us and especially for this precise, exact moment. They impress us, they fascinate us. These meetings are very rare, exclusive in life and leave an indelible mark!

Yoga says, that our life is a predefined program and is already written. Sometimes I have the impression, that it is also wrapped backwards. And we run it backwards. (going back) Who can ever prove it? No one ever….

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I like the idea that some parts of life run backwards... I've wondered about that sometimes. If when we meet someone for "the first time" they strike us so strongly because we've already somehow spent so much time with them in the future...

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YES. Fascinating. Incomprehensible….

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True. It seems like you already know him!!!

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