“Why are you here?” she asked me, as we sat in a doctoral seminar, Summer 2016. Why am I here? That is what she asked me. Right there in front of God and everyone. And what was I to say? I was not entirely sure why I was there either. Of course, there is anContinue reading “Ballad of a Dead Man”
Tag Archives: Grief
Dad, Dreams, and Death: An Anniversary Reflection
My dead father used to come to me in my dreams. I had never been visited by the dead before, so naturally these visits caught me off guard. I desperately anticipated them, yet I recoiled all the same. “Hello, hate to see you, but I’m glad you’re here.” Prior to my own living deadContinue reading “Dad, Dreams, and Death: An Anniversary Reflection”
In Memoriam: A Tribute To Bo Bandy
I came around the door, re-entering my office to gather a few things before departing for the day, and then she looked up at me, eyes confused, hands shaking, “Bo Bandy passed away.” She sat down, tears rolling down her cheeks, mascara smudging. Death had re-entered the building. My mom just dropped a bombshell. AContinue reading “In Memoriam: A Tribute To Bo Bandy”
Thinking Death, Suicide, Life
Imaging myself climbing into the casket and being buried with it was the last thing I had ever conceived. But there it was, the casket, my lifeless father, and suddenly an intimate closeness with death. After all, my father had just experienced death, how hard could it be? How bad could it be? Is itContinue reading “Thinking Death, Suicide, Life”
My Final Gift to my Father: This Burden
Unsuspecting subjects of the fates is what we become. Persons wandering the land only to be shackled by a yoke fashioned in the randomness of life. Living life, free, free of this burden, the world a place of solace and comfort, then suddenly, that world dies. There is no more freedom, not fromContinue reading “My Final Gift to my Father: This Burden”
Death asks Questions. Ecclesiastes Answers.
Sudden, premature, Death is the great equalizer. Both for those who die and those they leave behind. For those who die, suddenly, everything they were, or weren’t, did, or didn’t do, is finished. Their dreams, their opinions, their loves, their hates, their things and their family, all stay behind. The prince and the pauper meetContinue reading “Death asks Questions. Ecclesiastes Answers.”
Gutless Grieving: Taking Lamentations Seriously
Today, I have been fatherless for one month. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my father dying of heart attack (no family history of them), suddenly leaving us without any opportunity to say “goodbye,” speak final words of love or simply say “thank you” for being a great father, a wonderful granddadContinue reading “Gutless Grieving: Taking Lamentations Seriously”
A Prayer of Lament & Forgiveness
How Lonely sits the city where silence now resides The doorways are clean and empty, the water basins full Yet, there are no ripples in the water No footprints in the walkways The corridors are silent- only filled with the tears of lament The joy of my heart has ceased, our dancing has been turnedContinue reading “A Prayer of Lament & Forgiveness “
NO! You haven’t been here: The Singularity of Grieving Loss
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” – Ludwig Wittgenstein Experiencing the death of a loved one is not fact to be stated, a proposition that is an absolute truth. That a loved one has died IS a fact; that one has experienced the grief of the death is not a fact; itContinue reading “NO! You haven’t been here: The Singularity of Grieving Loss”
ParanormalChrist 