Sigrid was sweet, fun, goofy, curious; all the usual cat things. Silky and beautiful. By far the most beautiful cat I have ever known.
Tag: life cycle
This is the sound of me wailing. Again. Kaddish project’s over, but death does not just up and disappear. So. Here we are again. Only this time it’s a bit different. They’re killing you as we speak. They’re cutting you and hacking you. Albeit gently and with reverence. But still. Limb by limb. Loudly with […]
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the end of memory
It’s a very simple proposition: what if we forget? What if we forget the details? What if we forget their faces? What if they become reductionist cartoons, selective memory, fixed inside our stories, unverified by outside confirmation? What if they were not at all as we remember them? What if we got the stories wrong? […]
Here is the speech we read at Grandpa Hy’s funeral. Hy (his full name was Herman) Glantz was born February 22, 1924 and died July 2, 2011 of mesothelioma. Most likely due to asbestos exposure while working in the Brooklyn Navy Yards in the 1940s. In the Glantz family there is a tradition started by […]
The funeral was so fast! Her brother was leading people off to head for a gathering at the house, one last time. One of the chapel people, said “Stop — we haven’t said a kaddish!” Some of us had been waiting for a kaddish. But he was adamant — she wouldn’t want a kaddish. Just […]
I don’t believe any of this stuff, right? So how come I can see it all so clearly? Maybe I’ve just got no imagination at all. I can see the house vividly. Every detail, from ceilings to secret balconies and sunbathing decks. The place needs a major paint job. You’d think my next lifetime would […]
Candy Pants was my dad’s hunting dog, retired to California, endured four dogs’ worth of veterinary crises, and healed me—not exactly in that order.
Mira’s beautiful post from this morning about winter struck a nerve with me.
I marvel at her ability to celebrate rebirth, welcome surprises, and plan to keep molding her lump of clay. I usually feel that way myself—I’m having a great life, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of it plays out. But today I find myself wanting to bake my lump of clay hard, in this lovely shape it has today not wanting surprises.
I know she’s right. That’s not how this lifetime works, and I need to go on molding and rolling with the surprises.
So this is a kaddish for a lump of clay.
I’ve been thinking about rebirth a lot, lately and wondering why. All that rebirth stuff — I’ve always thought of it as merely wishful thinking, codified into religious precepts, to ease the mind regarding inescapable misery. Rebirth, opiate of the masses. Or something like that. Rebirth, the place we put our hopes and dreams. Next […]
It’s your seven-year cycle,” she said. “You’re coming up on the next seven, so that’s why you feel that something’s about to change.” And I thought, well what a load of crap. And then I thought about it. And then I started reading. And then I thought about it some more. I always liked Rudolf […]