24 January 08
Viva Nicholas
I don’t know what led me there today maybe it was the bells or the gray weather we’re having that’s so like Bodega Bay’s or maybe the memory of Dad discretely pointing out the boy’s father at the post office but not wanting ever to intrude in that English way on the deep pain of losing a child so absurdly in a case of mistaken identity while driving to Sicily then suddenly thrust into the spotlight so much that even the Pope wanted to meet them all just because they said on brain death simply and without much reflection we’ll donate his organs and the whole of Italy reacting in tearful love and shame taking this family as theirs and the story of his grave at St. Teresa’s in Bodega where still now there are flowers and I think of Dad’s ashes that were scattered over the cliff not five miles away and sing with the pain of it all of love and death and of falling rain.
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The Tibetan tradition is to leave what we think of as the “dead” body undisturbed for three days, (the consciousness being thought still to have some farewell work to do) so some Tibetan Buddhists I know were reluctant to be organ donors. Recently someone asked a celebrated lama about it, and he — apparently learning for the first time that such things as transplants and grafts were possible — thought it was a wonderful idea, terrific karma, how could you be a Buddhist and not do it? Which made me very happy. It chimes strangely with certain tantric practices, in which you visualize cutting up your body and giving away the pieces.
Anyway. Yeah.
So, so, so…. 0
Sometimes only the thought-stream approach will do it. And this rolling sequence of images & reflections is vivid & moving.
This is wonderful, and moving, and the words all chime separately and together like the bells.
Had to read it several times to figure out where to draw breath but I guess that’s O.K. because too much of my online reading is breathless skimming and it’s never a bad thing to re-read especially when the images and subject matter make each go-through different and deeper and I liked the added resonance that Dale’s comment brought as well. Thanks.
and sing with the pain of it all of love and death and of falling rain
Oh. Yes.