He tells her that, when Nola first died, he thought he’d die himself, of the sorrow.
She goes back to bed, turns out the light, and can hear herself start to snore before she falls off into sleep. She doesn’t know why so many people hate snoring. She finds it soothing. White noise, with a ruffle.
He hesitates, then turns and starts up her walk. Gives her a friendly smile, to boot. He wishes she wouldn’t wear a wig, or at least not one that sits so crookedly on her head. It’s a distraction. Sometimes he has to restrain himself from reaching over and giving it a little tug, then smacking her knee in a friendly way and saying, “There you go!” But why risk humiliating her?
It is early morning; outside, the sky is dark and the trees move dramatically in the wind. Soon a storm will come. I want to live to see it. This is the way of nature: to persuade us around one more bend, to beckon us to behold one more vista.
It’s good for you to be a bit uncomfortable from time to time, especially if you’re only a few steps away from relief. People forget about the value of adversity.
Those who say life is a glorious blessing are right. Those who say it is endlessly cruel are also right.
And so, what of it all? What of me and my passions and personas, my great loves and failures of love, my writing, my politics? What of the clanging opinions, the endless queries as to the whys and wherefores of how I chose to conduct myself? In the end, there is but one answer to every question, whether it is spit at me or made as gentlest inquiry: I was I.
I would try to find joy despite the necessary work of grieving, and I knew full well that work was exactly the right word to describe it. It was John’s life that was over, not mine.
That’s life. You’re born, and you get a ride on the Whirligig.
There’s always hope when a kid – or an adult, for that matter – likes to read.
Instinctively, the spider spins the web; just as automatically, the human shields the heart.
Well, I was just going to say that it seems one of the things you have to do in order to finally grow up is to let that what-my-parents-did-to-me stuff go.
Some things come true. They might come true in ways different than we might have predicted, but some things do come true.
The heart is a small muscle with tremendous strength;.
Everyone seemed to be in a blind hurry, and there was no relief in sight. Technology rushed us ever forward, and simple civility – a certain kindness and care – got sacrificed.
Life has its way, and it seems to me now that the object might only be to learn how to be graceful, to understand the value of a deep kind of acceptance.
We forget how ready people are to help. You can talk all you want about the evil spirit of man. But I don’t think it’s true. I think most of us are just dying to be good. And one way we can do that is to forgive the bad in others as well as in ourselves. I don’t say don’t hold people accountable. Help them be accountable. But to say those words to yourself or another? ‘I forgive you’? Most powerful words in the world.
Do not carry remorse for anything in the past; in the end, it is only prideful. Let peace dwell inside you, live your life in joy, and give thanks that God has come to you in this way.
I think love is all about risk. And reinvention. And honesty and revelation. And if you don’t have that in a relationship, you don’t grow, and you don’t stay true to what you started together.
The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to.
Patience is not only a virtue; it is a form of grace.