grief

Speaking and reading in a language is a privilege, one that I hadn’t acknowledged until now. So when I started reading more in Spanish, it no longer felt like a chore. It felt like every time I did, I was making my mother and Aya proud.

Perhaps Emily Dickinson was right when she wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers.” That’s a conclusion one might reach, in any case, from reading Sigrid Nunez’s probing, delightful and masterful new novel, “The Vulnerables,” whose most endearing character is an erudite green parrot named Eureka.

During the many times I’ve had a friend group fall out or grow apart, the following weeks certainly felt like a genuine loss. Yet grief seems to just be emblematic of the lasting love we had for our friends, and that is a comforting reminder that these relationships are worth pursuing.

Given its heavy subject matter, “A Good Person” may not seem fit for the faint of heart. But for every graphic depiction of desperation and darkness, Braff surprises his audience with tasteful moments of humor and hope.

you’re wrapped in my sheets and I hear only your heartbeat; nothing bad has happened to us

thousands of contemporary prayers whispered and embedded into my thoughts / you plague my vision, my memory / I am all I have left of you

my head is exploding / and the world reverberates with static / I am an old abandoned tv that / no one remembered to switch off

The rain will stop in two hours — and when it stops, the city will wake up to a sunny sky, clueless about the wet melancholy of the night.

When time warped in on itself and I stepped into another dimension, I didn’t anticipate the whiplash that demanded to be felt.

We never fully overcome a loss, but we evolve to accept that loss. My parents have significant others who are not each other, and I am happy for them.