On Mallarmé’s Tomb for Anatole—Or What to Do With Absence
stevenrkraaijeveld.substack.com
Few of us are spared the experience of losing someone we love. When it happens, when someone we love dies, the loss echoes around and resounds within us. Even the absence of an initial reaction—or perhaps especially a palpable lack of response, like the world not immediately ending—can be part of the constellation of grief. We are surprised to still be living, we are dismayed that after such a tragedy we can and do in fact still live. Guilt may slink in; guilt at not feeling the tragedy of the loss more heavily, more continuously, more loudly, for all of our waking moments, for the rest of our lives.
On Mallarmé’s Tomb for Anatole—Or What to Do With Absence
On Mallarmé’s Tomb for Anatole—Or What to Do…
On Mallarmé’s Tomb for Anatole—Or What to Do With Absence
Few of us are spared the experience of losing someone we love. When it happens, when someone we love dies, the loss echoes around and resounds within us. Even the absence of an initial reaction—or perhaps especially a palpable lack of response, like the world not immediately ending—can be part of the constellation of grief. We are surprised to still be living, we are dismayed that after such a tragedy we can and do in fact still live. Guilt may slink in; guilt at not feeling the tragedy of the loss more heavily, more continuously, more loudly, for all of our waking moments, for the rest of our lives.