After mom died, I found great comfort in a medieval Andalusian tale | Psyche Ideas

So many of the wise teachers among us apprehend truths of life from an edge of illness or crisis, where the view is suddenly so stark and so clear. They come back wounded and more whole than before, all at the same time—not cured, but healing, and embodying mystical ideas that seemed strange as abstractions and turn out to be common sense. The core

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That is all we have, this moment with the world. It will not last, because nothing lasts. Entropy, mortality, extinction: the entire plan of the universe consists of losing, and no matter how much we find along the way, life amounts to a reverse savings account in which we are eventually robbed of everything. Our dreams and plans and jobs and knees... See more

Yet the fundamental loss remains—it doesn’t just dissipate—and, in a strange way, I think it can become a magnet for other losses. We come to see we are all simply creatures carrying around our ever-deepening loss. Small griefs seem to collect around the bigger primary grief. I think this realization allows us to become a true human being.

After the death of a loved one, the incoming messages seem scrambled for a while. At times, closeness with our deceased loved one feels incredibly visceral, as though they are present in the room, here and now. At other times, the string seems to have fallen off the board — not shorter or longer than it was before, but simply stolen from us entirel... See more