• Hugo on Love and Grief

    Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief! He who has not seen the things of this world and the hearts of men by this double light has seen nothing, and knows nothing of the truth.

  • Carrying Grief

    Even if it is helpful to know that deep grief is quieting, it is consoling that some are closer to our particular pain. Most people immediately become awkward when I mention the miscarriage. It makes sense to me, as I act similarly around people who have more extensive familiarity with death than I do. I have never experienced the death of a child I have given birth to, have never yet experienced the death of a parent or a spouse. I am not old; I still cannot, as my professor told me in college, really understand Lear. But at twenty-five, watching Lear carry the body of Cordelia and cry, “Why…