Thank you so much for reading this and for commenting. I was going to reach out to you later because I was really thinking of you when I read your post I had such a similar experience cleaning the grave of my father had tears in my eyes when I read your post today!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ i’m so happy to know you!
Julie, this is such an incredibly generous comment! I cannot thank you enough it made my morning! I was thinking about what your mentor said, and I was thinking about how not just the size but even the shape of the hole speaks volumes!
Leanne...Thank You, Sooo much for this piece of written "gold..." I share your sentiments on "books, writing, history, death, life..." and your story about your Father's death, and how you've decided to honor him in your own way, touched me deeply...(I, too, lost my Father a couple years ago...) Lastly, "What the Dead Can Say" has also enhanced my view of death...and even more so "Life" as I've been living it...
Samuel, your comment made my morning!! THANK YOU!!!! I was sorry to read about your father. I agree that What the Death Say has enhanced my view of death--and life. It was such a blessing that the book landed into my life!!!
Thanks for the lovely, meandering post. I learned yesterday of the death of a former colleague and am surprised to find myself so moved, how she returns and returns to my thoughts. I guess I'd better talk to her. After all, I talked to my father regularly for several years after his death and I'm sure it helped. Perhaps I listened more than talked -- he would encourage and calm me, depending on what I needed. I don't say this to everybody, and I don't know why I'm saying this to you.
Thank you, Scott, for leaving this, and for your beautiful words. I do think our grief, and our emotions need a kind of voice or a container— and some of these rituals like cleaning the grave stone or remembering the days or, like you said, just talking to the dead, who are always in our hearts do think it can be a comfort 💕 many cultures I think that the dead hang around for a while! I’m so so sorry about your colleague!
This was a wonderful article so gently interweaving books, personal narratives and death. Our lives are very much as stories unwritten and unread like the Japanese stories you describe with unexpected twists and turns, but often with much everyday simplicity. I hadn’t heard of Little Free Libraries, but there are some even in my rural area of the UK. It’s inspired me. I am trying to downsize and need to re home some books.
Thank you so much for commenting!!! It’s such a coincidence that you wrote this comment because I was working on a short post about how our lives are stories and sometimes it’s hard to untangle the difference between our dreams and the stories we tell and then what we call real life or reality probably past This really clear differentiation between the dreamworld or story time and reality was a little bit more porous. It’s going to be really hard for me to give away any significant number of books because I’m so attached to them. Maybe it’s because I lost my library when I was in my 40s along with all my belongings. It’s a lot easier for me to give away my husband’s books !! lol 😝
Oh, this is priceless! I recall an article written several years ago in the NYT in which the woman (author) described her experience of grieving the life of her stillborn infant. I would imagine that infant and child ghosts have very particular characteristics. She was most drawn to the recognition in Japan of infant and child deaths, the work of Jizo taking care of them, and in this recognition all the plots of memorials with statuary wearing the red bib-like garment. Perhaps, as you note, we don't recognize the place of deceased loved ones enough in American life. Although, I can add that as a nurse one of the hardest things to do is taking care of the deceased after which in the next moment -- the expected behavior is that the next patient must be tended to as if "nothing happened". And each of us would be aware in a different way of the person next to "bed" in the room. Ghosts, indeed.
You could probably write a book! Nurses are present for so much of that liminal time between life and death. We also had kind of a strange experience when my father died in the company of one of the nurses that took care of him. I can barely remember it It’s kind of like you said we just don’t really focus on death and the dead very much in our culture compared to many cultures!
I think this is my favorite of all of your wonderful posts. I love how it, well, wanders--but with intent. Among other things, it makes me want to check out every Little Free Libraries I pass. Do you think the writer MADE the books for the purpose of leaving them in LFLs?
Thank you so much, Barb!! I really think the author wrote this beautiful novel to push back against the industry of commercial publishing or even against the kind of MFA literary publishing pipeline… from what I could see online people discovered the novel in different little libraries around the country or at least on the West Coast is what I found. It’s kind of a wonderful idea, especially given how much care was taken from the design of the book to the beautiful sentences inside it, and even that last little, foray into Instagram! It’s really a wonderful idea and now I’m so interested in the little libraries I’m seeking them out everywhere!
“The dead leave a hole in our hearts that we long to fill.”
How sadly wonderful that you chose to share this on the anniversary of my father’s death, of the hole in my heart I have no hope of filling.
I am so glad to know you, yet again.
Thank you so much for reading this and for commenting. I was going to reach out to you later because I was really thinking of you when I read your post I had such a similar experience cleaning the grave of my father had tears in my eyes when I read your post today!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ i’m so happy to know you!
According to my mentor, when someone dies, they leave a hole in reality. And the size of that hole in reality tells you about who that person was.
Leanne, I have followed your writing for years in 3 Quarks. I find so much aliveness in what you write and how you write. Thank you for modeling that.
Julie, this is such an incredibly generous comment! I cannot thank you enough it made my morning! I was thinking about what your mentor said, and I was thinking about how not just the size but even the shape of the hole speaks volumes!
Leanne...Thank You, Sooo much for this piece of written "gold..." I share your sentiments on "books, writing, history, death, life..." and your story about your Father's death, and how you've decided to honor him in your own way, touched me deeply...(I, too, lost my Father a couple years ago...) Lastly, "What the Dead Can Say" has also enhanced my view of death...and even more so "Life" as I've been living it...
Samuel, your comment made my morning!! THANK YOU!!!! I was sorry to read about your father. I agree that What the Death Say has enhanced my view of death--and life. It was such a blessing that the book landed into my life!!!
Just beautiful ~ such a skilled weaving of words ... pointing towards the place, the space where words run out ... echoing vaults of silence. 🙏🏽
Thank you so much for this wonderful comment! It really made my morning!
Thanks for the lovely, meandering post. I learned yesterday of the death of a former colleague and am surprised to find myself so moved, how she returns and returns to my thoughts. I guess I'd better talk to her. After all, I talked to my father regularly for several years after his death and I'm sure it helped. Perhaps I listened more than talked -- he would encourage and calm me, depending on what I needed. I don't say this to everybody, and I don't know why I'm saying this to you.
Thank you, Scott, for leaving this, and for your beautiful words. I do think our grief, and our emotions need a kind of voice or a container— and some of these rituals like cleaning the grave stone or remembering the days or, like you said, just talking to the dead, who are always in our hearts do think it can be a comfort 💕 many cultures I think that the dead hang around for a while! I’m so so sorry about your colleague!
This was a wonderful article so gently interweaving books, personal narratives and death. Our lives are very much as stories unwritten and unread like the Japanese stories you describe with unexpected twists and turns, but often with much everyday simplicity. I hadn’t heard of Little Free Libraries, but there are some even in my rural area of the UK. It’s inspired me. I am trying to downsize and need to re home some books.
Thank you so much for commenting!!! It’s such a coincidence that you wrote this comment because I was working on a short post about how our lives are stories and sometimes it’s hard to untangle the difference between our dreams and the stories we tell and then what we call real life or reality probably past This really clear differentiation between the dreamworld or story time and reality was a little bit more porous. It’s going to be really hard for me to give away any significant number of books because I’m so attached to them. Maybe it’s because I lost my library when I was in my 40s along with all my belongings. It’s a lot easier for me to give away my husband’s books !! lol 😝
Oh, this is priceless! I recall an article written several years ago in the NYT in which the woman (author) described her experience of grieving the life of her stillborn infant. I would imagine that infant and child ghosts have very particular characteristics. She was most drawn to the recognition in Japan of infant and child deaths, the work of Jizo taking care of them, and in this recognition all the plots of memorials with statuary wearing the red bib-like garment. Perhaps, as you note, we don't recognize the place of deceased loved ones enough in American life. Although, I can add that as a nurse one of the hardest things to do is taking care of the deceased after which in the next moment -- the expected behavior is that the next patient must be tended to as if "nothing happened". And each of us would be aware in a different way of the person next to "bed" in the room. Ghosts, indeed.
You could probably write a book! Nurses are present for so much of that liminal time between life and death. We also had kind of a strange experience when my father died in the company of one of the nurses that took care of him. I can barely remember it It’s kind of like you said we just don’t really focus on death and the dead very much in our culture compared to many cultures!
I think this is my favorite of all of your wonderful posts. I love how it, well, wanders--but with intent. Among other things, it makes me want to check out every Little Free Libraries I pass. Do you think the writer MADE the books for the purpose of leaving them in LFLs?
Thank you so much, Barb!! I really think the author wrote this beautiful novel to push back against the industry of commercial publishing or even against the kind of MFA literary publishing pipeline… from what I could see online people discovered the novel in different little libraries around the country or at least on the West Coast is what I found. It’s kind of a wonderful idea, especially given how much care was taken from the design of the book to the beautiful sentences inside it, and even that last little, foray into Instagram! It’s really a wonderful idea and now I’m so interested in the little libraries I’m seeking them out everywhere!