I just wrote a long post about this haunting column in today's NY Times by K.A. Ledding about the suicide of her teenage daughter and, as I was writing the last sentence, the screen went blank. I leave it to readers to interpret. Having had this happen in the past, I'm prone to ascribe all kinds of meaning -- and to try to reconstruct a complicated piece.
Just this for now: I hesitate to write about grief at all for reasons the author of the Times piece clarifies: This column explains why there are a lot of people studying the nutritional content of canned goods in grocery stores.
That which is unsaid is often what the griever needs to hear most: the hug, the nod, the wordless walk on a path the dead person loved, shawls--one made by hand, a floral arrangement sent by a child on an important date.
Asking *how* someone is doing is not that helpful. And as we used to say in the (RIP) newspaper biz...
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