Library of Wisdom
Hard-earned lessons from lives shared by choice — every card donated deliberately by its author, with the whole life behind it. The Library is young; it grows one life at a time.
4 cards from 3 lives on grief & loss.
Grief & loss · Faith & doubt
What to say at a graveside
I have stood at more gravesides than I can number, and here is the whole of what I know to say there. Say the name. Everyone has gone suddenly afraid of the dead one's name, and the family is starving to hear it out loud. Then say one small true thing you saw the person do — small, mind you; the big things get said by the program. Then hush. Do not explain the death. You don't know, and they know you don't know, and your not-knowing said honest is worth more than your knowing said pretty. And bring the casserole on the thirty-fifth day, not the third. Grief keeps a long tail and short company.
To someone younger: Say the name. One small true thing. Then hush.
— Rev. James E. Caldwell · AME Zion pastor, forty-four years — Richmond, VirginiaDemonstration
Faith & doubt · Grief & loss
The year prayer went silent
Ruth died on a Tuesday in Lent, and for eleven months I preached every Sunday on a God I could not get on the phone. I did not pretend otherwise. I stood up and told my congregation the line was quiet, and I kept dialing in front of them. No seminary taught me what that year did: the people never needed my certainty. They needed to watch a man keep knocking at the door of a silent house. If your prayers have gone quiet, you are not failing at faith. You are in the part of it they don't put on the church sign.
To someone younger: Doubt out loud in front of your people. It gives their doubt somewhere to sit.
— Rev. James E. Caldwell · AME Zion pastor, forty-four years — Richmond, VirginiaDemonstration
Grief & loss · Regret & forgiveness
The two names
There are two names on the Wall I read every time I'm in Washington. Tommy Kowalski, and a kid from Georgia we called Brick because of how he swam. You don't get over it. Anybody tells you that you get over it, walk away from that person, they have nothing for you. What you do is carry it. And after enough years the carrying stops being a weight and starts being part of your legs. You walk different. You walk anyway.
— Frank Moretti · Marine, tool-and-die maker, grandfather — Toledo, OhioDemonstration
Grief & loss
On grief
Grief is not a problem to be solved; it's a country you learn to live in. You don't get over it. You get fluent in it. And one day you notice you can hear his name without flinching, and you can teach the new arrivals a few words of the language.
— Eleanor Whitfield · Teacher, gardener, grandmother of sixDemonstration