“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends – they’ll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything – they’re your true best friends. Don’t let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they’ll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them – actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can’t give up because if you give up, you’ll never find your soulmate. You’ll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don’t, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.”
― Marilyn Monroe

Darwin8u 

“It occurs to me that we allow ourselves to imagine only such messages as we need to survive.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

In four days it will be one year since my father-in-law died in an accidental shooting. He had recently turned 60 and recently celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary. In 18 days it will be four years since my older brother died suddenly in a Back Hawk crash in Germany. He was closing in on his 40th birthday. He was preparing to land.

I had two father-figures in my life. I also had two brothers. I lost one of each pair suddenly – dramatically. I’ve watched my wife struggle with the loss of her father. I’ve watched my mother-in-law struggle with the sad death and absence of her husband. I’ve watched my sister-in-law and her kids struggle with the death of their husband and father. I’ve watched my parents, my siblings. I have grieved much myself for these two good men.

I was reading when they died. I know this. When my father-in-law died I was reading Falconer. When my brother died I was reading This Is Water. After their deaths I couldn’t read for weeks, and struggled with reading for months. I was in prison. I was drowning in a water I could neither see nor understand.

Reading Didion’s sharp, sometimes funny, but always clear and precise take on her husband’s death and her daughter’s illness … my experience is reflected. Not exactly. I’m no Joan Didion and my relationship with both my father-in-law and my brother are mine. However, Didion captures in the net of her prose the essence of grief, tragedy, loss, coping, remembering. Her memoir makes me wonder how it is even possible that someone could both feel a semblance of what I feel and capture all the sad glitters, glints and mudgyness of mourning at the same time. It takes a helluva writer.

“If I told you that God speaks to us through our urges so long as these are safe and proper and totally civilized and don’t hurt anyone, what would I be saying? If I told you longing is okay as long as it is within the bounds of what our world considers normal, I would be going counter to my whole tradition. 

My people discovered divine urges, for goodness’ sake. Not namby-pamby urges either. It was loincloth-tearing, harlot-marrying, sacrificing, succumbing, and surrendering kinds of urges. Not without bickering and haggling, I’ll grant you, but ultimately urges of the worst kind, the kind that demanded everything.”
― Francisco X. Stork, Marcelo in the Real World

There is the moment when the silence of the countryside gathers in the ear and breaks into a myriad of sounds:a croaking and squeaking, a swift rustle in the grass, a plop in the water, a pattering on earth and pebbles, and high above all, the call of the cicada, The sounds follow one another, and the ear eventually discerns more and more of them -just as fingers unwinding a ball of wool feel each fiber interwoven with progressively thinner and less palpable threads, The frogs continue croaking in the background without changing the flow of sounds, just as light does not vary from the continues winking of stars, But at every rise or fall of the wind every sound changes and is renewed. All that remains in the inner recess of the ear is a vague murmur: the sea.
Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees