(Untitled)
One of my clients is dying, and I've cried four times about it in the last twenty-four hours. I feel like saying that I don't know how to handle it, but I know that the truth is, I'm probably actually handling it in a very healthy way. It's appropriate to cry when someone you've know for two years not only has a brain tumor, but also (discovered
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'Were you not talking yonder?'
'Yes,' the child rejoined.
'Of something that has made you sorrowful?'
There was a long pause. 'What was it?' said the schoolmaster, tenderly. 'Come. Tell me what it was.'
'I rather grieve--I do rather grieve to think,' said the child, bursting into tears, 'that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.'
'And do you think,' said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, 'that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves--neglected as they look to us--are the chief instruments.'
'Tell me no more,' said the child quickly. 'Tell me no more. I feel, I know it. How could I be unmindful of it, when I thought of you?'
'There is nothing,' cried her friend, 'no, nothing innocent or good, that dies, and is forgotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it; and play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautifully would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!'
Anyway, I'm thinking of you and looking forward to seeing you soon.
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