Rita

“My father used to try to tell me to never say anything about anyone that I wouldn’t want them to overhear. “It will make you boring in conversation sometimes,” he said. “Maybe you know something private about someone that’s embarrassing and you could say it at a party, make everybody laugh. You’ll have to hold yourself back from doing it. Give up the fun of getting that laughter for yourself. But if you believe that you’re called to never cause pain to another human being, it won’t be a hard choice.”
― Duchess Goldblatt, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

“When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
― Maya Angelou

“Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”
― Debra Ginsberg

“If you have the education, wits, and leisure time to pursue your own interests, you have it better than 99% of the people who ever lived.”
― Duchess Goldblatt, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt