“Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated July 18, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 162.
buy on Amazon
category: mourning, rhythm, suffering
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Poor old Black Dog. I miss him. In the early morning when I work, he’s not there on the kudu skin beside the typewriter; and in the afternoon when I swim, he’s not hunting lizards beside the pool; and in the evenings when I sit in my chair to read, his chin isn’t resting on my foot. I miss Black Dog as much as I miss any friend I ever lost.”
Ernest Hemingway
more infosource: Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir, by A. E. Hotchner (New York: Da Capo Press, 2005), 243.
view on Google Books
category: dog, memory, mourning, pet, pet loss
medium: Memoir
“I want to tell you that Rose was an extraordinary dog, bossy and demanding of attention, comforting in her very presence. Famously, she first appeared in the pages of Vogue fifteen years ago. I told the story of her puppyhood and our first meeting in a popular article that was later reprinted and anthologized. She sat on my shoulder in book-jacket photographs. When she was very dirty after a run, I would tell her to go get in the bathtub, and she would. She once scampered onto the headrest of my parked car, made a vertical leap through the open sunroof, and ran across the parking lot, into the grocery store, and up and down every aisle until she found me. She was loyal and brave and as smart as a treeful of owls. By explaining her talents and legions of virtues, though, I would not be making my point, which is that the death of my dog hit me harder than the deaths of many people I have known, and this can’t be explained away by saying how good she was. She was. But what I was feeling was something else entirely.”
Ann Patchett
more infosource: “The Sense of an Ending,” Vogue, Sept 2012.
category: death, grief, mourning, pet, pet loss
medium: Pet eulogy
“A cold winter night. I’m warm enough, yet I’m alone. And I realize that I’ll have to get used to existing quite naturally within this solitude, functioning there, working there, accompanied by, fastened to the ‘presence of absence.'”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated November 28, 1977, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 69.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: absence, alone, grief, loneliness, mourning, nothing, solitude
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Carlo died—
Would you instruct me now?”
Emily Dickinson
more infosource: The Letters of Emily Dickinson vol 2, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958), 449.
buy on Amazon
category: death, dog, grief, mourning, pet
medium: letter
notes: letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, late January 1866 — Carlo was Dickinson's Newfoundland, her "shaggy ally" — more info about Carlo here
“Sorrow almost resents love, it is so inflamed.”
Emily Dickinson
more infosource: January 1878 letter to Mrs. Samuel Bowles, in Emily Dickinson Letters, Emily Fragos ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 198.
buy on Amazon
category: grief, mourning, sorrow
medium: Letter
“I wish one could be sure the suffering had a loving side. The thought to look down some day, and see the crooked steps we came, from a safer place, must be a precious thing…”
Emily Dickinson
more infosource: May 1862 letter to Louise and Frances Norcross, in Emily Dickinson Letters, Emily Fragos ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 194.
buy on Amazon
category: depression, grief, mourning, suffering
medium: Letter
“My overcoat is so dreary that I know maman would never have tolerated the black or gray scarf I always wear with it, and I keep hearing her voice telling me to wear a little color.
For the first time, then, I decide to wear a colored scarf (Scotch plaid).”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated March 6, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 99.
buy on Amazon
category: color, mother, mourning, voice
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Exploration of my (apparently vital) need of solitude: and yet I have a (no less vital) need of my friends.
I must therefore: 1) force myself to ‘call’ them from time to time, find the energy to do so, combat my—telephonic (among other kinds)—apathy; 2) ask them to understand that above all they must let me call them. If they less often, less systematically, got in touch with me, that would mean for me that I must get in touch with them.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated August 3, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 181.
buy on Amazon
category: friend, introvert, mourning, socializing, solitude
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Disappointment of various places and trips. Not really comfortable anywhere. Very soon, this cry: I want to go back! (but where? since she is no longer anywhere, who was once where I could go back). I am seeking my place. Sitio.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated August 1, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 176.
buy on Amazon
category: alienation, death, discomfort, mourning
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Everything began all over again immediately: arrival of manuscripts, requests, people’s stories, each person mercilessly pushing ahead his own little demand (for love, for gratitude): no sooner has she departed than the world deafens me with its continuance.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated June 15, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 146.
buy on Amazon
category: death, demand, mourning, obligation
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“I have not a desire but a need for solitude.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated January 22, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 91.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: grief, introvert, mourning
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Everyone is ‘extremely nice’—and yet I feel entirely alone. (‘Abandonitis’).”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated January 8, 1978, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 86.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: alone, grief, loneliness, mourning, nice
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought…?”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated November 28, 1977, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 68.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: breakup, death, love, mourning
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
“Solitude = having no one at home to whom you can say: I’ll be back at a specific time or who you can call to say (or to whom you can just say): voilà, I’m home now.”
Roland Barthes
more infosource: entry dated November 11, 1977, in Mourning Diary, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 44.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: grief, loneliness, mourning, solitude
medium: diary
notes: On index cards, Roland Barthes starting keeping a mourning diary the day after his mother died in October 1977.
mourning