tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post1880522645211464238..comments2010-02-27T16:00:21.560-05:00bibchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13696528943928321710noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-89936592649593879192010-02-27T16:00:21.560-05:002010-02-27T16:00:21.560-05:00You have a great blog and I&#39;m so happy you emailed me so I could find YOU. I don&#39;t always make it around the blog world like I used to, but you, you and I are going to be friends, I think.Aunt Beckyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12146687582842259611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-86191178250036783432010-02-27T09:48:15.365-05:002010-02-27T09:48:15.365-05:00read a glow in the woods too...can&#39;t remember how I found it...jeannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17206219261467132784noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-55963538011290977282010-02-25T14:06:06.666-05:002010-02-25T14:06:06.666-05:00thanks bon...i got it.<br />i did leave the part that speaks the most to me. so eloquently written and haunting.<br /><br />love you guyslishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13696528943928321710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-4244953765348089182010-02-25T12:42:24.112-05:002010-02-25T12:42:24.112-05:00I still can&#39;t believe that she&#39;s not alive anymore, wrote a friend of her baby girl. That she was born so sick. That she lived for two months and then died. When does that stop happening, that feeling of disbelief?<br /><br />I replied I think probably never. But it changes.<br /><br />First you can’t believe the child—or the potential of a child—is gone. Then you can’t believe that you are gone, too. You’re simultaneously more lost and more found than you’ve ever been in your life. You feel so much more and think so much less.<br /><br />You spit venom at anyone who would dare presume to either cross this gulf or heckle you from the other side of it. Death has draped one and then two silky-thin sheaths over you, one being a pallor, the other being concentrated gratitude, and with one on top of the other the resulting effect is a disordered fog that’s unconvincing either way.<br /><br />++++<br /><br />A wise friend writes to me. She says<br /><br />People think that by expressing sadness or rage or self-pity, you are lacking in compassion by not remembering the suffering of others, or by making others uncomfortable. But by refusing grieving parents the opportunity to pass through those necessary spaces, those dark emotions, we deny compassion to you.<br /><br />Necessary spaces.<br /><br />For a while, there is what feels like the failure of one&#39;s own body. The inability to be intimate without sobbing. The despair that throws you out of yourself. The jealousy of others you perceive to have been spared. The suffocation of feeling muzzled, or rushed. The fleeing from pregnant women in supermarkets. The intolerance for social cowards. The morbid jokes that leap unbidden out of our mouths, shocking us and cracking up our spouses for a change as if to say Good lord, this year has sucked. But if I don&#39;t laugh, I will explode.<br /><br />None of it sticks around forever, all of it reverberations, necessary spaces.<br /><br />Never mind the pursuit of grace, or the worry over a lack of it. Grace will find us again when we’re ready.<br /><br />For as long as you need to be, be unnavigable. Or distant, or perplexing to the outside world. Because nodding to the gracelessness, the void—that&#39;s the only way to allow it to get on with its business. It is a necessary space, a state of mind that is honourable and normal and not to be denied.<br /><br />One day, you breathe. And you know that, despite not being fashionable or palatable, you are more compassionate now than you ever were before. You know how surreal it is to cradle an urn in rush hour traffic. You are all at once a giant and a meek, trembling thing. You know now to embrace both. You know that it&#39;s not your fault that some people can&#39;t bear the taste of black licorice.<br /><br />One day you breathe<br /><br />and it almost feels like oxygen.<br /><br />+++<br /><br />To you I hold up my dark and you simply nod at it, perhaps raise a glass. You don’t deny it. You don’t try and reason with it. You know that this is the ache and the flailing of a heart. And I raise my glass to you and yours.Bonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00840177062465339663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-52701891248132064562010-02-25T12:37:26.348-05:002010-02-25T12:37:26.348-05:00You are great. :)jenicinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16361606793108116475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4287188573376284482.post-10809917006402708192010-02-25T10:15:36.897-05:002010-02-25T10:15:36.897-05:00this: &quot;i&#39;m just a person who has a hard time being anything but herself.&quot;<br /><br />is awesome. i shall quote you again and again. a perfectly formulated thought. <br /><br />i think you&#39;re a wonderful writer. embrace it yo.kathrynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10548311760903944369noreply@blogger.com