Phetasy News - Slow Down
Phetasy News - Slow Down
Dumpster Fire - Lamest Doomsday Ever, Michael Shermer On The Truth About Conspiracy Theories, Factory Settings - Therapy, Politically Homeless - Seeking Common Sense, In Defense of Paranoia & Merch
Greetings from the Phetaverse!
A beautiful woman died today. She was 44 years old. A doctor. A wife. A mother. She was diagnosed with cancer two months ago but by the time they found it, it was already too late. I can’t stop thinking about her kids, her siblings, her parents, her husband. She was a truly beautiful soul inside and out. Her grace and elegance lit up every room she was in. I only knew her peripherally and I’ve been cycling through grief all day, so I can only imagine what the people closest to her are going through. I’ll go from disbelief to depression to acceptance to rage in the blink of an eye. An enormous hole will be left for everyone who knew her best.
Life is profoundly unfair. She had so much in front of her. So many more anniversaries with her husband. So much more life to see her kids through. So many more travels. She was robbed—and so was everyone who loved and knew her. In my moments of anger and depression, it would be easy to turn to nihilism and cynicism. Our culture is infused with it right now after all.
But it’s lazy. And it’s disrespectful to the memory of this woman. She embodied service and literally saved scores of lives. The harder thing to do is try to live as she did. Joyful. Optimistic. Hard working. Always bringing people together to celebrate life and friendship and family.
I resent that tragedy must strike anyone in order to be reminded of what’s truly important. We get caught up in the mundane bullshit, the million balls we are trying to keep in the air, the to-do lists, the frenzy of modern life—when all that really matters is right in front of us—if we could only slow down and enjoy one another. It’s so simple and yet, we forget. Over and over I lose this perspective.
I know I’ve used this before in the newsletter, but today this Jack Kornfield quote has just been running through my head: “The trouble is, you think you have time.”
Thumbnail artwork by Lara Cullen.
Email laracullenstudio@gmail.com to inquire or contact her.
Life is a brief candle. Sometimes it seems like the brighter it burns, the quicker it is gone.
My heart is assembled with (crazy) glue, the pain emanating from your loss, Bridget, seeps into the cracks.
What an assignment we have: live life in the moment , don't fear the reaper, have a 401K, don't stop thinking about tomorrow, live while I'm alive. It's the same philosopher who said "Supersize me" and "Be a size zero."
Life is a series of contradictory rules. And they just get stranger.
Last night my husband - a long time women's pelvic surgeon - was told he can't be honored by a particularly organization because only women can recognized for this healthcare honor. The same organization refuses to define the term "woman."
The greatest woman I ever knew died suddenly in August is 2018. People get hyperbolic about the dead but if she was still breathing I would describe her the same way.
Although maybe some would call her a birthing person.
She birthed triplets and two other babies, with the ease of going to Trader Joe's to buy a bouquet of dahlias. Incidentally, that is the last place I saw her. Had I known it would be the last time, I would have bought all the flowers for her and also said "please don't die."
Her loss belongs to her kids who are all still under the age of 13. Her loss belongs to her family - particularly her mother - who will carry that with her as an appendage till her last breath. Her loss does not belong to me, yet I have to idea how to not feel it or how to grieve it. Or get over it.
Want to hear something nuts? I continued to text her for two months after she died. Eventually I decided not to give my family evidence of diminished capacity and save my data for the living.
Since she died, the entire world is off its axis and I wonder if she might have been the mystical character holding it all together.
I can hear her saying - "Yeah, right. And also, you're still in therapy? Just checking."
Sending slow hugs. 💜