We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. Most of us are at ease in discussing what makes for a good life, . . . . Continue Reading »
Dancing, in mind at least, toward a stage of untested embrace— Virginal spirits grasped in the shared, unexpected spectacle Of one season’s end, and another’s hesitant . . . . Continue Reading »
It assaults the eye, the Ponder familygraveyard, with twin obelisks visiblehalf a mile away. . . . . Continue Reading »
I will become dust and you will become dust and ashes our tongues and ashes our eyes but, ever beloved and empassioned dust, our embers will last as long as the skies. —Anthony . . . . Continue Reading »
For much of human history death was associated at least as much with infancy and youth as with old age. To live to be old was an achievement—a modest victory over death, and one often thought of in religious terms as a blessing. In our time, however, when death and old age so often go hand in . . . . Continue Reading »
Moving in the cool cellar gloom Among the dusty bulbs and withered tubers Of last year’s old dispensation, I marveled at their mummy masquerade: Dry as death, their brittle skin flaking Under my curious fingers, there they lay. Half-burnt embers of a secret . . . . Continue Reading »
In that house of quiet dying, through still sheers that turn the day to gray, only two chairs of six are sat upon, the bed no longer shared. She smiles, a 5 x 10 on the television top, he laughs, a young man upon the mantle. But, air unmoving from dining room to kitchen old woman watches TV alone, . . . . Continue Reading »
I heard the news in late May as I was walking into the Sno-White Cafe here in Pine Bluff, Ark. Walker Percy died, Roger Coley told me. Roger is a Mississippi boy who’s now design editor at the Pine Bluff Commercial. Newspapers have titles like Design Editor these days. He stopped in front of the . . . . Continue Reading »
When the Loyola Marymount basketball team, riding the crest of an emotional high after the death of star player Hank Gathers, was making its spirited run in the NCAA basketball tournament last spring, CBS did a short feature on Gathers before one of the team’s games. At one point. Brent Musberger . . . . Continue Reading »
As I write these words, it is exactly one week before my seventieth birthday”“the days of our years,” according to the Psalmist; the day “the warranty runs out,” according to a friend of mine. Today is also the twenty-fourth anniversary of my father’s death, four months and ten days . . . . Continue Reading »
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