This journal is mostly public because most of it contains poetry, quotations, pictures, jokes, videos, and news (medical and otherwise). If you like what you see, you are welcome to drop by, anytime. I update frequently.

Layout by tessisamess

Customized by penaltywaltz

Tags

Layout By

Posts Tagged: 'grief'

Apr. 16th, 2025

med_cat: (woman reading)
med_cat: (woman reading)

4 Types of Grief No One Told You About

med_cat: (woman reading)
4 Types of Grief No One Told You About, by Sarah Epstein
Tags: , ,

Apr. 11th, 2024

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

"Life is all about a series of moments"

med_cat: (Hourglass)
I am dying at age 49. Here’s why I have no regrets.

Life is all about a series of moments, and I plan to spend as much remaining time as I can savoring each one

Perspective by Amy Ettinger, from The Washington Post

and a follow-up, 6 months later:


I have little time left. I hope my goodbye inspires you.

We are all learning, in our own ways, how to let go

Dec. 20th, 2023

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Ольга Берггольц "Какая темная зима..." / "What a dark winter", by Olga Berggolz

med_cat: (Hourglass)
Ольга Берггольц
Какая темная зима...

Какая темная зима,
какие долгие метели!
Проглянет солнце еле-еле –
и снова ночь, и снова тьма...

What a dark winter,
Such long blizzards!
The sun will just barely peek out--
And it's night again, and darkness again...
Read more... )

Dec. 18th, 2023

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

А. Городницкий - Рахиль / "Rachel", by A. Gorodnitsky

med_cat: (Hourglass)


Dec. 16th, 2023

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Poem of the day, by Svetlana Mendelev

med_cat: (Hourglass)

Я ослепла от успокоительных и вина.
Я оглохла от патетической болтовни.
Мир дошёл до дна, но не оказалось дна…
И в свободном падении каплями длятся дни.

I've gone blind from sedatives and wine.
I've gone deaf from high-flown talk.
The world has reached bottom, but it turned out there's no bottom...
And the days continue, like droplets in free-fall.Read more... )

Jul. 11th, 2022

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

"Parler à mon père", by Celine Dion

med_cat: (Hourglass)




Feb. 5th, 2022

med_cat: (woman reading)
med_cat: (woman reading)

Book rec

med_cat: (woman reading)
Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

I'd read this in December--if the subject is of any interest to you, personally and/or professionally, I highly recommend it. The author had worked with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

Apr. 17th, 2020

med_cat: (cat in dress)
med_cat: (cat in dress)

Quote of the day

med_cat: (cat in dress)


~~
("I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?")
~~
And, on a (somewhat) lighter note:Two more: )

Aug. 19th, 2019

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Two poems by Julia Drunina

med_cat: (Hourglass)
Два вечера

Мы стояли у Москвы-реки,
Теплый ветер платьем шелестел.
Почему-то вдруг из-под руки
На меня ты странно посмотрел -
Так порою на чужих глядят.

Read more... )
Two Evenings

We were standing near the River Moskva,
And the warm wind was rustling my dress.
Suddenly, you glanced at me funny
From under your hand--
Sometimes, people look at strangers this way.

Read more... )

Оно, наверное, смешно...

Оно, наверное, смешно:
На склоне лет — стихи.
Но можно новое вино
Влить в старые мехи.

Read more... )
I suppose it's ridiculous...

I suppose it's ridiculous--
Writing poetry in one's old age.
But new wine
Can indeed be poured into old skins.

Read more... )

Oct. 7th, 2018

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Уж сколько их упало в эту бездну / "So many of them had fallen into an abyss", by Marina Tsvetayeva

med_cat: (Hourglass)
* * *

Уж сколько их упало в эту бездну,
Разверзтую вдали!
Настанет день, когда и я исчезну
С поверхности земли.

So many of them have fallen into this abyss,
Which is gaping open far away!
The day will come when I too will disappear
From the face of the Earth.

Застынет все, что пело и боролось,
Сияло и рвалось.
И зелень глаз моих, и нежный голос,
И золото волос.

Everything will freeze, which had sung and struggled,
Shone and aspired.
The greenness of my eyes, and my tender voice,
And the gold of my hair.
Read more... )

Sep. 27th, 2018

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

What if...

med_cat: (Hourglass)

what if
when icarus fell
apollo caught him
before he hit the sea,
arms as warm as the sun,
but safer.

what if
when ariadne cast the rope
across a broken branch
aphrodite stepped in
with a reminder that this,
this is not the kind of love
you die for.

what if
when achilles
was ready for war
ares appeared with a smile
and said “you win well when you win,
but what are you unwilling
to lose if you lose?”
and achilles knew the answer.

if you could
retell the tale wouldn’t you want
to tell it kinder? wouldn’t you
want to give them peace, even love,
where you could?



l.s. | I AM TIRED OF RE-WRITING TRAGEDY WITHOUT CHANGE. LET THEM LIVE. LET THEM LEARN. LET THEM LOVE © 2016

Posted 2 years ago on 27th May

by poemsforpersephone Tumblr ( http://poemsforpersephone.tumblr.com/post/145021756099/what-if-when-icarus-fell-apollo-caught-him-before)

Sep. 11th, 2018

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Ken Meisel, 'Reminiscences'

med_cat: (Hourglass)

Reminiscences

Freud speaking with Breuer, in Lower Manhattan,
New York City, September, 2001


I

They’d completed their rounds of patients at the hospital and walked
through the damaged city for about one hour, before returning back

to the clinic. “All the world’s psychological traumas can’t be resolved
by the Talking Cure—” Breuer said to Freud as they strolled past

the railway of the Hudson River where a man, drunk on yellow bullets,
Nembutal, rocked back and forth like a Bedouin, a crazed orphan.

The park was full of young mothers and children, and the restless river,
punctured with refuse from the recent terrorist attacks, glistened

with floating glassware and plastic. Scrap wood and debris rippled lazily
over the sordid currents, and above them, swallows from a bombed-out

brownstone up the hill rose and fell in haphazard, drunken reenactments.
Someone played a saxophone under a tree, and a boy, his thin mouth

full of lipstick, his face painted in clown, did silent mime like a fragile doll.
The media had issued warnings about toxic debris in lower Manhattan,

and the police warned of other possible terrorist attacks and that citizens
in all parts of the city should maintain a calm alertness, wherever they went.

The two medical doctors paused, fed the ducks at the river’s edge
of the park before proceeding across the busy streets of New York.

II

“Oh, let me tell you of the woman I spoke with yesterday,” Breuer
said to Freud, nudging the latter on the elbow as they walked beyond

the park onto the street where the crippled clubs hosted dinner music.
“The woman had spoken to me with specific complaints of losing

the smile on her face, that it had been torn off, really, after the tragic
unfortunate death of her child, just a boy—a sixteen year old boy

with freckles and piercings, by suicide, by leaping, she said to me,
recklessly from an overpass north of here and high on hallucinogens

and too much Metallica.” “And that he’d been obsessively viewing
sociopolitical material about the East-West divide in our world, on the web,”

Breuer added, while pulling out a cigar, “and that his mother couldn’t )

By Ken Meisel

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] duathir at Ken Meisel, 'Reminiscences'
Cross-post from [livejournal.com profile] war_poetry:

Jan. 5th, 2018

med_cat: (woman reading)
med_cat: (woman reading)

"The Highwayman", by Alfred Noyes

med_cat: (woman reading)

The Highwayman

PART ONE
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
      Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
    
 His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard. / He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred. )

Dec. 27th, 2017

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

A toast

med_cat: (Hourglass)










(this holiday season/New Year's)

...To absent friends...

"Но те, которым в дружной встрече
Я строфы первые читал…
Иных уж нет, а те далече,
Как Сади некогда сказал.

Без них Онегин дорисован.
А та, с которой образован
Татьяны милый Идеал…
О много, много Рок отъял!

Блажен, кто праздник Жизни рано
Оставил, не допив до дна
Бокала полного вина,
Кто не дочел Ее романа
И вдруг умел расстаться с ним,
Как я с Онегиным моим.".

"But those, to whom, at an amicable gathering
I had been reading the first verses of my book...
Some are no more, and others are far away,
As Saadi had once remarked.
I finished sketching Onegin without them,
And she, from whose pattern
The lovely image of Tatyana was formed...
Oh, how much, how much has Fate taken away!

Blessed is he who left the feast of Life
Early, not drinking the full glass of wine
To the the lees,
Who hadn't finished reading Her Novel
And was able to part with it suddenly,
As I part with my Onegin."

(Pushkin, the last lines of his novel in verse "Eugene Onegin")

[and no, I don't quite agree, but I thought it might interest some of you to see the full quote. It was the first four lines that I was really thinking of.]

Dec. 26th, 2017

med_cat: (H&W gray)
med_cat: (H&W gray)

A few stories from the Watson's Woes comm Advent calendar

med_cat: (H&W gray)
These are ones I especially liked, and perhaps some of you might as well, if you'd not already read them.

The first two are serious, the remaining four more light-hearted.


A depiction of BLAC, The Great Mouse Detective version:


That's Where Fifty Years' Experience comes in (Mrs Hudson explains her recipe:)
med_cat: (H&W gray)
med_cat: (H&W gray)

A few stories from the Watson's Woes comm Advent calendar

med_cat: (H&W gray)
These are ones I especially liked, and perhaps some of you might as well, if you'd not already read them. The first two are serious, the remaining four more light-hearted.

A depiction of BLAC, The Great Mouse Detective version:


That's Where Fifty Years' Experience comes in (Mrs Hudson explains her recipe:)

Oct. 5th, 2017

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Ничего никогда не вернуть / Nothing can ever be brought back....

med_cat: (Hourglass)
                         ***

Ничего никогда не вернуть,
Как на солнце не вытравить пятна.
И в обратный отправившись путь,
Всё равно не вернёшься обратно.

Эта истина очень проста
И она, словно смерть, непреложна.
Можно в те же вернуться места,
Но вернуться назад невозможно.

[translation here--and yes, the original is rhymed]

Nothing can ever be brought back,
Just as the sunspots cannot be removed from the sun.
And setting out on the road back,
One still cannot come back to the same place.

This truth is a very simple one
And, like death, it is inexorable.
One can come back to the same location,
But one cannot ever go back.

(Nikolai Novikov)

Sep. 12th, 2017

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

D.H. Lawrence, 'Ballad of Another Ophelia'

med_cat: (Hourglass)
Ballad of Another Ophelia

Oh, the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain,
Oh, the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard,
O, tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of Autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

. . . . . . . . .

Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups -- and buttercups was I.

What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?
'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom --
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rainstorm
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct -- !
And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked?

by D.H. Lawrence
~~

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] duathir at D.H. Lawrence, 'Ballad of Another Ophelia'

Sep. 11th, 2017

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

"If recollecting were forgetting," by Emily Dickinson

med_cat: (Hourglass)
If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot.
And if to miss--were merry,
And to mourn--were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gathered this, Today!

(Emily Dickinson)


Jul. 10th, 2017

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

Chaura-panchasika, 'Black Marigolds'

med_cat: (Hourglass)
Black Marigolds

"And sometimes we look to the end of the tale that there should be marriage-feasts, and find only, as it were, black marigolds and a silence."
—Azeddin el Mocadecci


Even now
My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter
With garlands tissue and golden buds,
Smoke tangles of her hair, and sleeping or waking
Feet trembling in love, full of pale languor;
My thought is clinging as to a lost learning
Slipped down out of the minds of men,
Labouring to bring her back into my soul.

Even now
If I see in my soul the citron-breasted fair one
Still gold-tinted, her face like our night stars,
Drawing unto her; her body beaten about with flame,
Wounded by the flaring spear of love,
My first of all by reason of her fresh years,
Then is my heart buried alive in snow.

Even now
If my girl with lotus eyes came to me again
Weary with the dear weight of young love,
Again I would give her to these starved twins of arms
And from her mouth drink down the heavy wine,
As a reeling pirate bee in fluttered ease
Steals up the honey from the nenuphar.

Even now
I bring her back, ah, wearied out with love
So that her slim feet could not bear her up;
Curved falls of her hair down on her white cheeks;
In the confusion of her coloured vests
Speaking that guarded giving up, and her scented arms
Lay like cool bindweed over against my neck.

Even now... )

From the Sanskrit of Chauras
(Chaura-panchasika, 1st Century)
English translation by E. Powys Mathers

Originally posted by [livejournal.com profile] duathir at Chaura-panchasika, 'Black Marigolds'
OSZAR »