This is how it works: I get an email from a woman asking me to find files from eight years ago. She hired me in 2006 to write the biography of her dearly-departed husband. Now she emails to ask me to find transcripts of the audio-taped interviews from that book.
To do this, I must dig in the attic, which is now in a crazy state of disarray in part because of all the Corey Stuff I am collecting and storing.
Hunched in the attic over a big box of CDs, hoping to find one with the files she wants, my hand randomly (you know what I mean when I say "random") ) finds a CD I bought more than ten years ago: Martin Prechtel's talk on Grief As Praise.
Prechtel says: Spirit gave us life so that we can grieve.
"If you're not grieving, you're killing life. If you're not grieving, you're killing your grandkids. You must know how to weep good…you gotta show people that it is cool to weep. It’s cool to grieve and it’s cool to be alive. You gotta let people know that all things must be recognized, especially grief.
"To grieve properly takes a lot of people. For one person to grieve, it takes a hundred people. A thousand people.
"You gotta get a whole bunch of people together; people that you don’t even know, so you can do the grieving properly. Because the honoring of the grief is a form of praise for the dead. Too many families think that they shouldn’t grieve. Families must grieve. When people grieve together, Spirit drinks the tears, and that is good. After the tears, everything is sweet. The word in Mayan for “I feel happy” is “honey in my heart” and it means 'the tears of the gods is the happiness I feel, and the grief that I feel is the food for the spirits.'"
I give thanks for C.R. whose "random" email sent me into the attic. I give thanks to the hundreds of people who are helping me grieve by reading this blog and daring to shed your own tears. Let's let the tears fall. The afterglow of those tears is so sweet.
To do this, I must dig in the attic, which is now in a crazy state of disarray in part because of all the Corey Stuff I am collecting and storing.
Hunched in the attic over a big box of CDs, hoping to find one with the files she wants, my hand randomly (you know what I mean when I say "random") ) finds a CD I bought more than ten years ago: Martin Prechtel's talk on Grief As Praise.
Prechtel says: Spirit gave us life so that we can grieve.
"If you're not grieving, you're killing life. If you're not grieving, you're killing your grandkids. You must know how to weep good…you gotta show people that it is cool to weep. It’s cool to grieve and it’s cool to be alive. You gotta let people know that all things must be recognized, especially grief.
"To grieve properly takes a lot of people. For one person to grieve, it takes a hundred people. A thousand people.
"You gotta get a whole bunch of people together; people that you don’t even know, so you can do the grieving properly. Because the honoring of the grief is a form of praise for the dead. Too many families think that they shouldn’t grieve. Families must grieve. When people grieve together, Spirit drinks the tears, and that is good. After the tears, everything is sweet. The word in Mayan for “I feel happy” is “honey in my heart” and it means 'the tears of the gods is the happiness I feel, and the grief that I feel is the food for the spirits.'"
I give thanks for C.R. whose "random" email sent me into the attic. I give thanks to the hundreds of people who are helping me grieve by reading this blog and daring to shed your own tears. Let's let the tears fall. The afterglow of those tears is so sweet.
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