Grief's Depths

Meghan O'Rourke follows it down:

[T]he story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.

Now and then, you think you discern glimpses of that other life. Running along a quiet road four months after her death, I thought I felt my mother near me, just to the side. I turned, and saw nothing except a brown bird with a gray ruff and strangely tufted feathers. I did not know its name. She would have.

(Photo by Dal in Cape Town)