AUGUST 17
It was not until the cremation was over, which only my
children and a few friends attended, and I had scattered my
husband’s ashes at the end of the garden where we often
walked together, and my children had returned to their own
homes, that I knew, with full force, the finality of
death...What had to be endured must be endured now, and
at once, alone.
—DAPHNE DU MAURIERThe timing for facing the aloneness death leaves us with
may be different for different people. Maybe right away
isn’t the best time. And some can’t be physically alone for
long—as in the case of a grieving mother or father who still
must attend to the needs of young children. But in the quiet
moments before sleep—or when waking in the night and
remembering—each of us is faced with the inescapably sol-
itary aspects of grief.
And why not? While we can talk with others, there is a
territory of loss only we can enter. But there is a strange
ambiguity in our solitude. Often when we are most desper-
ately confronting our loneliness, the sense of our loved one
is strongest. The person is gone; we are desperately lonely.
But what is this vitality in the air?
I will step into the unknown dark, trusting I will be safe.