A Tidings of Magpies

"One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found - and it is found in terrible places... For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out." James Baldwin

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and ...

Parole by Alan Brownjohn (i.m. I. H.) The lately dead still arrive in the corner of your eye Past the restaurant window, preparing slow smiles of pride At achieving their return. They know that without them You can never be the same, so they cheat for a while. They keep trying to work a parole to the usual places, They won't be excluded from them if you are there. Their fingers have pressed the latch and the door nearly opens, But then their smile turns embarrassed because they find It behaves like a turnstile: they think they have admission, But this door is fixed to prevent them coming back in. And you just can't help, at all; if you went out to greet them They would not be there, no one in the street would have seen them. Then slowly the corner of your eye Forgets to look.

We went to a wedding on New Year's Eve...the eldest son of my best friend from high school. My friend who recently died. The wedding was held in the same church as her funeral four months ago. Seems like yesterday. The wedding was beautiful, and joyful, perhaps more so because of the sorrow that each one of us felt at our loss of her. It's no secret that not all marriages end happily ever after and the priest talked about the courage that this couple had in making a commitment of marriage and in having hope for their future. He is correct. It does take courage and, of course, his words were meant to do more than seal the deal for this young couple. The priest was aware of all the broken hearts in that church on this cold winter evening and of the power of love to heal them. To believe that is a path of the brave. A Wedding Poem by Thomas R. Smith   Bright faces surround the woman in white, the man in black, the sweetness of their att...

Giselle ... "...cause sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead." Poor Giselle, if only she'd had an IPod to listen to the wisdom of Adele or read some poetry. Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself by Barbara Crooker like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking, flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek across the sky made me think about my life, the places of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling, the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place. Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold for a brief while, then lose it all each November. Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields, land on the pond with its sedges and reeds. You do not have to be wise. Eve...

One of my dearest and bestest friends has died suddenly. We were locker partners in high school. She sat in front of me in homeroom. We were co-captains of the cheerleaders for the wrestling team. And we stayed friends through many years and many changes. None of them obviously our looks.  "...Time it was, and what a time it was, it was A time of innocence, a time of confidences Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph Preserve your memories; They're all that's left you" (Bookends,Paul Simon)

Arc by Amy M. Clark My seatmate on the late-night flight could have been my father. I held a biography, but he wanted to talk. The pages closed around my finger on my spot, and as we inclined into the sky, we went backwards in his life, beginning with five hours before, the funeral for his only brother, a forgotten necktie in his haste to catch this plane the other way just yesterday, his wife at home caring for a yellow Lab she'd found along the road by the olive grove, and the pretty places we had visited— Ireland for me, Germany for him— a village where he served his draft during the Korean War, and would like to see again to show his wife how lucky he had been. He talked to me and so we held his only brother's death at bay. I turned off my reading light, remembering another veteran I met in a pine forest years ago who helped me put my tent up in the wind. What was I thinking camping there alone? I was grateful he kept watch across the way and served coffee in a blue tin cup...

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggest they are about to die. --Matsuo Basho Some deaths seem more tragic than others. Pointless in the ensuing loss of intelligence, kindness, talent, future of someone who should have had more time. But the life we face does not play by those rules, and death comes as it will, often without warning. Natasha Richardson's death seems ridiculously cruel following a fairly undramatic bump to the head. I imagine we'll hear and read a bit more about whether a helmet could have prevented injury and it's a fair subject for discussion. However, the truth of life is that there are no guarantees. No day is promised to us. As much as I joke to my grrrls about wearing helmets and life jackets when they leave the house, there is no absolute protection from living. John Travolta's son died from a traumatic brain injury after a fall in the bathroom related to a seizure. I cared...

by Naomi Shihab Nye Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes s...

We've had a terrible tragedy in my hometown. I won't pain you with the details, every city has their share of senseless crime and some hit closer to one's home than others. My thoughts are with a mother who now knows where her missing daughter is and two others who may see justice done. Prayers to all those who have suffered loss or loss of any hope.

It's early in the day, yet I've already read about two deaths on my small corner of the blogging world. By coincidence we had two deaths yesterday, well, one died after aggressive care was withdrawn and comfort care maintained, and one patient was transferred to in-patient hospice. We pass a funeral parlor on the way to HoneyHair's dance lesson, its parking lot filled to the edges and cars overflowing up and down the street from friends and neighbors come to comfort. Another cold and grey rainy day here, the kind of day that keeps grief hovering close to the earth by sheer weight of the cloud cover. It's a day when sadness could reign. But it is a day that I am alive to tell the tale and live out loud, so I offer this poem with many blessings for those who have loss and grief in their lives. In a beautiful blue lagoon on a clear day, a fine sailing ship spreads its brilliant white canvas in a fresh morning breeze and sails out to the open sea. We watch her glide away ...

there's a train a-coming. don't need no ticket, you just get on board." Went to a funeral today, my hubby's co-worker, dead at age 54. What once sounded old to me has changed over the years I realized as I stood with our friends in the early afternoon light on this beautiful golden October day and watched the casket being placed into the hearst. Because we are nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and we daily watch the current of morbidity, mortality pass by us it's easy to believe that we are safe on dry land protected from those chilling waters. But life is what it is. No more, no less. Few words of comfort for the group gathered here today. Michael had collapsed at work and the resuscitation attempts were done by those who knew and loved him well. "All the King's horses and all the King's men..." During the service I had the uncomfortable feeling of being at the losing end in a game of Tug of War and the priest knew he was dragging us all th...

You don't have to look far to see hundreds of thousands of people who have had to deal with very bad news. The Susan G. Komen Walk for Breast Cancer as shown by Rudee for instance. Being around people who have been delivered bad news is not new to me. I was talking with my patient, Ms. M., this weekend. She was supposed to have been in the middle of a cross-country road trip with her husband, destination northern California. Instead, she was lying in a hospital bed, paraplegic after falling from her horse. I was asking about how her family was handling all this and I asked about her horses-who was caring for them? Her horse's name is Ephraim. "I was going to change it, but after a while it grew on me and seemed to fit him. He's a sweet, sweet boy. So gentle. Goofy. A big galumph." I said that I bet he missed her. "My daughter went down to the barn the next morning to feed him. When she got there he just lowered his head and buried it in her chest." My ...

I haven't felt much like writing these last few days, or even finding a poem to reflect the day. The loss of the 16 year old boy on Tuesday has lingered and I've not been able to completely wash off the raw pain that filled his hospital room and seeped down the hallway until it filled the entire unit with the cries of his family. It was not an unexpected death. The resulting injury from the bullet's path was non-survivable. It had crossed the midline and the swelling to the brain from the blast force pushed his brain downward herniating his brainstem which led to brain death. It was non-survivable once some young boy's index finger pushed back the trigger in a tiny increment of a second. Less time than taking a breath. He either pulled the trigger himself or someone else pulled it. Kids playing to be men with guns not realizing the gun was loaded or perhaps some darker,more malevolent reason. Doesn't matter in the nanosecond of choice to the nanosecond of no return....

Moving through the bodies that travel my mornings I am sorry to learn of Tom’s death. He and my father, all exiting the comfort of home and an English teacher at Oak Hills, were grabbing our coffees and conversations to go great friends. I remember his wit, in and out doorways. Sidewalks bubble with breath, vibrancy, and passion like yesterday. I’m sorry for the loss buses stop and go, backpacks and briefcases block the path, of your fossil-collecting uncle, brother, and son. Smoke and bodies fill my eyes. My deepest condolences. This originated from a quote I read in Newsweek, "I saw smoke and bodies."-Mohammed Kadhem, witness to a suicide bomb attack killing fifty-two in the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, Iraq on March 17, 2008.

Grief is not always practical. It leaves white, wooden crosses standing along roads and fast moving highways, some with fresh plastic flowers, by others bouquets now sun- faded and disheveled. All with writings on the hammered strips of wood illegible when driving by at 60 MPH even in the slow lane. Reminders that death is ever present in life, although difficult to mow around. It is grief that has placed the large cardboard box in our dining room filled with my mother-in-law’s papers, next to the piano, under the birdcage, waiting quietly to be filed in manila folders with headings written in black permanent marker— “Doctors’ Bills”, “Letters from Lisa”, “Mom’s Old To-Do Lists,” and grief that collected the fossils and rocks from my brother’s apartment to lie in rest dusty on our bookshelves. It is grief that finds other tasks for me, distractions and obstacles, that keeps me from climbing the stairs to the attic floor and my daughter’s empty bedroom; her clothes that need to be sorte...

Every night lights are extinguished and not all rekindled with the break of morn. And, so it was with you. Doused to dreams by Morpheus and the cancer dwelling within, your light grew cool, flickered, and was gone. It’s absence but a minute change from the breath before. Your love a blaze lamented too hot by some it touched, erratic in its warmth, bending side to side with drafts of winds, and drafts of change. I mourn not the loss of flame not having felt the heat, but grieve the lack of it for those I love whose ways are dark with loss of you.