I am the indoctrinated child of two lapsed Irish Catholics. Which is to say: I am not religious.

A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.

Funerals cost so much money, and are likely to be an additional source of stress in this recession - it's sad that we don't have a more humane, less commercialized way to approach burial.

For sure, the funeral industry seems intensely cynical to me and I don't think it is HELPING people mourn.

Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is different from anyone else: We all lose loved ones; we all face our own death.

Faith does help mourners survive their loss, some studies suggest; but I imagine one still struggles.

My theory is this: Women falter when they're called on to be highly self-conscious about their talents. Not when they're called on to enact them.