The First Death

In his poem, “A Refusal to Mourn,” Dylan Thomas said, “After the first death, there is no other.” He was writing about a child who burned to death in the bombing of London during World War II. In addition to the child’s death, Dylan might also have been referring to the death of his childhood belief in life’s innocence and that everyone lived a happy existence into ripe, old age. 

The Worst Grief

Sometimes when we’re feeling bitten hard by grief, or just snarky, we try to prove that we are hurting the most, and that our grief is the worst that anyone has ever experienced. In the entire world. Ever.

I’ve lost a wife in her 40s, three beloved pets (well, one not so beloved), both parents (one to dementia), all my grandparents, a pair of in-laws, a friend to AIDS, two to murder, several to cancer, one to suicide, and a number of young friends to car accidents. As I walk among the tombstones in my personal cemetery, it would be hard to put them on a scale of the worst because they each hit me hard in different ways.

Inspector Lewis

After being gone for a while, the PBS mystery series Inspector Morse came back, but with Lewis taking over the lead role. During the time the show was off the air, Lewis’s wife has died in a car accident. Not only does Lewis have to learn to do a new job without his mentor’s advice and his wife’s support, he also has to carry on in the midst of his grief, and deal with unresolved anger at the driver who killed her.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

(This is part of an essay that was first published in Back Road Café, London, U.K.)