“We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other—even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain….Everything will pass, and serenity and accepted mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, and I will help you. The only thing is not to melt in the meanwhile.” - Henry James on grief

Letters of Note: Sorrow passes and we remain

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Steve Jobs

"[When Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore."

Kurt Vonnegut

"WILD GEESE" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

LISTEN, KID

That was fun. You proved you could do it and you did it hard. But this next year won’t have any backyard parties or curbside fireworks or sunny road trips with a boy you could fall in love with if only he plays that Okkervil River song again. The lake hasn’t been warm for two years now and that boy who comes over in the middle of the night is free during the day. Think about it. There are two different diseases racing to kill your mother. Sit still here with me. Do you hear that? This is your life now. The cats want to be fed. Your favorite leggings have holes in them and your jeans don’t fit because you drank too much Frenet while making eyes at that boy who moved to Portland. Or maybe it was the whiskey and that other boy back from New York. They’re gone now. They were extras in the prequel to the only character test you will ever have: what would you do if the woman who raised you had one year left to live? What would you give up? This is it. Please stop humming that song because this is not a movie with a score. Feed the cats, pick up the medicine, give up the late nights. She brought you here. She woke you up. She taught you to speak. You’re smart enough to know that a life cannot be itemized. You owe her nothing but your bones which is all you have, so give them back. Show her the strength of what she made. This has nothing to do with you.

months
have
gone
by
without
either
of
us
stabbing
the
other

let's
eat
out

Denver Butson

FOR WHEN YOUR MOTHER HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER

You will not be spared, nor will what you love be spared.

A wind has come and gone, taking apart the mind;
it has left in its wake a strange lucidity.

How privileged you are, to be passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed you.

This is the light of autumn; it has turned on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the end
still believing in something.

- Louise Gluck, October