the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

If writers possess a common temperament, it's that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave.

the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

Grief is what tells you who you are alone.

It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection.

Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble. Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear.