GRIEVING NOTES

Intro

Okay, I think I'm ready to start blogging again. But before I get back into the regular grind, I want to spend maybe a week or so working my way into it. That is, I'm still quite overwhelmed by the unexpected death of my mother, and want to devote some space here for a while to trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings.

Generally, I don't blog about my personal life unless I'm able to contextualize my own circumstances into the bigger picture. So, while losing my mom is extraordinarily personal, it is a deeply human experience that most of us either have endured or will do so someday. What bigger picture is there than life and death? What bigger picture is there than life-long love?

Indeed, the week I spent back in Houston with my father and brothers, as well as what seemed a cast of hundreds from earlier periods of my own life, seemed more mythological than anything else. Well, in addition to mythological, it was also surreal, dreamlike. But that's the point: both dreams and mythology are far beyond typical human experience, but also at the center of all human experience.

It's all been marvelous and horrible. Like going to Olympus and meeting the gods.

Anyway, I'll be back, maybe tomorrow or Thursday, to write about day one, when I got the call, and how I reacted, and what I did before leaving for Houston.


My mom and dad in their late teens, circa 1957.

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