Taking notes on index cards as was his habit, he reflected on a new solitude, on the ebb and flow of sadness, and on modern societys dismissal of grief.

Nous sommes tous porteurs dun deuil, et celui-ci nous touche, nous claire.

Im sorry to wake you, my sisters voice through the receiver, but Mom died last night.

C.S. Lewis: No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

A days events are distilled and filtered through the lens of loss.

Barthes: At each moment of suffering, I believe it to be the very one in which for the first time I r.

Barthes: At each moment of suffering, I believe it to be the very one in which for the first time I realize my mourning.

I went to bed late the night of August 16th, smug from having won 4,000 playing blackjack.

I envision the specter of time tapping me on the shoulder as I laid my head upon the hotel pillow and whispering in my ear, You will use that money to bury your mother.

Our family room is filled with every chair in the house to accommodate visitors.

My father offers people food, cooked and delivered by other people.

I give a dirty look to anyone who unwittingly sits in Shirleys favorite chair.

A year after her death and everything is exactly as it was the day before she died.

Her medicine bottles sit bedside, clothes in the closet, recipe book open on the counter.

This is the last time I will spend the night in this house, the last holiday celebrated.

Barthes: The most painful point at the most abstract moment The family is in the hearse heading to the grave for the ceremony, leading the long line of mourners.

Well, Im dead, but Im making good time I cover my chuckle, turn it into a sob.

I imagine people scouting the graveyard for a nice plot, see the unmarked area, inquire and find that it contains an interred beloved.

So beloved that they didnt bother to give her a grave marker.

It just has always felt that to do so would make everything so final.

Barthes: To see with horror as quite simply possible the moment when the memory of those words she spoke to me would no longer make me cry.

Roland Barthes Journal De Deuil Pdf