⌛️ 1,825 Weeks
Friday, March 25, 2022
Welcome to the sixth day of spring, and the seventh quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. It’s a shorter one.
-V
1,825 Weeks
This week I’m grieving my friend.
Back at the start of this newsletter, I promised life updates in the good times and the hard. This week has been one of the hard times.
I learned Monday morning that my friend of seven years and colleague of five, David Pope, had died. He was 35. He leaves behind his fiancee Kristin, his son Ty, and their newborn son Silas.
People grieve so differently. I've had dozens of conversations with grieving people this week, and each has its own texture. My wife tells me that there are two types of grievers generally. There are intuitive grievers, like her, who don't usually have to seek out grief because it comes to them. It flows intuitively; it washes over them in waves. Then there are task grievers, like me, who have to seek it out and do it somehow.
I'm someone who doesn't cry easily (except for at the opening sequence of the Pixar movie Up, heheh). But I love to make music, and I've found that a good lament song can take me far.
When my close friend Kirk died three years ago, I was in a funk for months - numb, flat, and unaware of how out of it I was. What finally helped me grieve then was a song. It's a folk standard that's been recorded by everyone from Washington Phillips to Mavis Staples to Mogwai: What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
I remember sitting on our porch swing in high spring, banjo on my belly, hollering my own rendition at the top of my lungs. It was singing that song when I felt most connected with my friend Kirk. At one point I think I even recorded it and shared it with his widow.
I've learned I have to find things to do that will help me work out my grief in creative ways. Like the "Dear Dave" notebook I made for the HUM community to fill up with letters to, and memories of, our friend. Or this memorial page I made yesterday, at his family's request.
I haven't found my song for Dave yet. Soon.
What I made or helped make this winter
Physical Thing (from a digital thing)
A timeline I made years ago just got published as the key appendix in a scholarly tome of American Presbyterian church history. It's a tangle.
Digital Thing
Open this link to join “A Tour of My Office” on Marco Polo. It’s a lighthearted bit-by-bit tour of my overcrowded office space at Helping Up.
Thanks for reading! Hit reply to tell me what you thought. I'd love to hear how you've learned to grieve.
Post tenebras lux,
Vic