The 60-Second Sabbath

grief

  • Three Dresser Drawers

    She may take only what fits in three dresser drawers. Continue reading

  • Vigil II

    We hear the train rumble into the stationas we stand around the bedthat cradles the 90-year-old-womanwhom we call wife, mother, sister, friend. The wailing of the whistlesignals the train has stopped.We glance at one another:Is this an arrival or a… Continue reading

  • Vigil I

    There isn't a discrete momentwhen you say, with certainty,"There, that was death." Instead, there's the dawning realizationthat the next breath hasn't come,that at some point,somewhere in the last minute or two or three,something that had been there for decades,snuck past… Continue reading

  • Blessing Tree

    In 2002, the Christmas after my mom died (two years after my dad died and four years after my sister died), I did something uncharacteristically Dirk; I decorated my tree in stages: I assembled it one night, then put the… Continue reading

  • God Talking

    Yesterday morning, five of the eight people with whom I work were told that their positions were being eliminated. Two will be gone by the end of the year, the other three at the end of March. All were then… Continue reading

  • The Garden of Pain

    Poet and author John O'Donahue describes our suffering as time in the "garden of pain," a place in which our time is "not wasted or for naught." This interior space of pain is not the wasteland we typically imagine, not… Continue reading

  • When Someone You Love Is Gone

    When someone you love is gone, either because of the loss of relationship, distance or death, all of what was between you and that person (or other being, like a pet) has no place to go–the affection, for example, or… Continue reading