Some years back, I wrote a Facebook post with this tl;dr (“too long, didn’t read”) about a professor in the St Olaf College math department. Yesterday I learned that he died a few weeks ago. May his memory be a blessing. tl;dr for Rebecca Boardman: you don’t lose points for what you get wrong—you gain…
Category: essays
Mira and Erin writing on themes of death, dying, grief, ritual, music, listening, Kaddish, Lev Kogan’s “Kaddish,” and so on.
a kaddish for the forestry buff who also played horn pretty well
a kaddish for my teacher, Boris Rybka
kaddish for anke akevit (2015-20)
Rest in peace, sweet Anke Akevit. You were a sweet cat.
a kaddish for too many suicide victims—but it gets better!
This is a kaddish for too many suicide victims. Since suicide is a contagious disease, and it’s in the headlines again, I think it’s urgent for parents, friends, family, teachers, coaches, and vague acquaintances of young gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning folk to be on the alert in coming weeks. LGBTQQ youth are statistically…
a kaddish for sigrid syltetøy vang, b. 2006, d. 27 February 2018
Sigrid was sweet, fun, goofy, curious; all the usual cat things. Silky and beautiful. By far the most beautiful cat I have ever known.
the stones I cannot place
My mother’s ‘passing’ has crippled my writing. And apparently that’s not all. It would be unfair to blame her, per se, because that would be rude. But I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that she’s had a hand in it. Some lesson left to teach. I thought what would be fitting (I had this brilliant idea…
oh amy, how could you — a kaddish for amy smith
My plan was that nobody else would die. Ever. My plan was to leave the death-and-dying biz to someone else; give someone else a turn. My plan was that enough was enough. At least for this year. My plan was that only the elderly die, and that sometimes it’s a blessing and an end to…
occasional kaddish: for Josephine Selvig Anderson (11 April 1915– 22 January 2012)
My great-aunt Joad died a few days ago, of wicked old age. I didn’t record a kaddish for her tonight. Instead, I recorded some traditional shofar calls.
and death is so much closer than it was—a kaddish for rebecca fromer
The house is empty. I’m not sure what to do and death is so much closer than it was— The phone isn’t ringing starting 5 AM and every ten minutes or so thereafter Even the delusions have stopped having culminated in one final coup de gras She ascended, ascended to Jerusalem. I got calls from what…
easy come easy go: a kaddish for adrienne cooper
I hadn’t thought about her since we were kids. Hadn’t thought about what might have become of her. What her contribution might be to the world. All I remember is that she was a prima donna when I met her. In 5th grade. Unreachable. Unapproachable. Two years my senior, and yet we were in the…