Here we look at the many facets of loss. Along the way we meet others who have known sorrow, share in their experiences, and explore how we may find ways to live with our wounds. There are no easy answers but together we may discover meaning in our lives ahead.
I taught college for many years and publish on art, history, culture, and translation. I have appeared on The Discovery Channel, A&E, and The History Channel and have been interviewed by NPR, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. I have lectured at libraries and museums and was curator of Asian art for the Florence Museum of Art and History. I am a member of the Rückert Society in Schweinfurt, Germany, and a former member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). I currently write on grief; my daughter, Jessica, died in 2015.
I might have behchet disease. I am hurting so bad that between 0 and 10 I am at level of 7 or 8. I live with this pain everyday and I try not to let anyone notice I am in pain. If i did not have my kids I don’t know what I would do.
This is a lovely tribute to a beautiful lady, so sorry for your loss.. I know how this feels I’m currently living in continuous pain can’t get to pain clinic for 2 years as there is a backlog since Covid.. Behçet’s disease is an awful thing to live with.. I’m struggling with it so much. This video is beautiful thank you for sharing ❤
Seeing and hearing this again-sometime later-and yet...still missing-as if I expected something else...grief is the stranger thing...Terri, Jenna's Mother
Thank you, David, for the moments you took to write me and the blessing that was given to you by a true friend that you shared with me. I lost my daughter, Jenna Rose. I just want to tell you that I've not forgotten you, what you went through and what you said. I have much more work to do. Am changing Dr's.-this one did me no favors. Sent me to a unenlightened therapist, although I tried. Put me on some anti-depressants-2 months or less after Jenna died, so "That I would stop crying." Well, it stop[ped-she kept raising the dose. I lost what filters I had gained in life. So I finally took myself off of it-I am not against that type of help-just not in that dosage and the idea of "needing to stop crying" was too hard for me to understand at the moment and protect myself! So, I have also been "diagnosed" with at least 2 new illnesses-and it is painful and debilitating. I am working through that on my own, finding other Dr's. but am mostly bed ridden and have been-for the time being anyway. I feel better off the large-dose anti-depressant-I was in no way suicidal, ever- and will also feel better when I can completely extricate myself from this Dr. and get a new primary care person-one who doesn't do that and who also doesn't miss health problems and then freak out and treat me very poorly to get me to leave-just talk to me-but I suppose they are all afraid of what patients might try to do legally-though I have never been like that, ever. The Dr. ha created a lot of harm to me. And has injured me with words as well as not being thorough with my medical records. But they are everywhere and I thank God when I finally find a good one-with ethics and smarts and professionalism and compassion. I'm up with one specialist-and am going from there. I just felt like writing-the holidays, obviously. I do hope this finds you moving along at your own helpful pace and that you and yours have managed to stay well. Thank you again. ts
I do hope W H Auden doesn't mind me rehashing his words... Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message Our Queen Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. She was our North, our South, our East and West, Our working week and our Sunday rest, Our noon, our midnight, our talk, our song; I thought that Our Queen would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. W H Auden
Thank you, again, David. I find an understanding in the manner you have approached your own beloved child, My daughter was desperately ill from her early 20's until our final trip to the hospital a few hours away. 2019. Yes, she is missing from me. be well. Terri, Jenna's Mother
You are welcome, Terri. 2019---such a short amount of time. Three years can feel like no time at all in our calendar of grief. Yesterday, perhaps, or last week. You remind me of professor and priest Henri Nouwen's thoughts on loss: "Real grief is not healed by time. . . . If time does anything, it deepens our grief. The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who she was for us, and the more intimately we experience what her love meant for us." Nouwen was writing from the lived experience of his own grief. He concluded his letter with this thought that I now share with you: "Consolation and comfort are to be found where our wounds hurt most."
@@DavidBannonToday I love Henri Nouwen! A woman visited me after a surgery and quoted him. I was instantly drawn to that; it either resonated with me or else it felt like something familiar. I remember saying that to her, about 25 years ago. Now I feel as though I need to read a book by him-if I can concentrate that long. Thank for your acknowledgment that 3 years is really not that long ago. You are a kind and insightful human being. Terri
I thought that was James Galway on flute. And to anyone who might read this and think me odd to mention that before this love and dearly paid for poem, I ask you to open your mind's eye to grief, once again, for this is just how I dealt with the loss of my precious daughter, at this moment-didn't know I was going to do that-I just did. blessings, Terri---Jenna's Mother
Seems as though this is true National Treasure. I read below where in the USA there are "wind phones" also. Isn't it a worldwide need? Blessings. Terri
Here's a list of the US Wind Phones I know of: Battle Ground, Washington. Fahnestock State Park, Putnam County. NY. Oakland. San Francisco. Squaxin Park (Formerly Priest Point Park), Olympia. Washington. Oneonta, New York. Provincetown, Massachusetts. Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Folly Farm Nature Preserve. Safety Harbor. Florida. Quail Hollow Park. Stark County. Ohio. Marshall, (North of Asheville) North Carolina.
Oh, thank you kindly! I am sorry it took me this long to see what you wrote about the locations in the USA that you know of. This seems rather incredible to me-I think it is a true need and a wonderment, at once. Thank you for your diligence and your caring. I just now said aloud, to my open window, "Thank you, Landscape Detective." If you hear it on the wind or feel it somehow, that was me just now. Terri
David Brannon, I was so bowled over by the response you so generously gave that I totally missed the Celtic blessing right in fort of me! Hope you did not think I was just a dolt! That is a beautiful saying and what you have said also touches my heart. I have it copied in a notebook now. Thank you. Blessings, Terri
Hiddleston is solemn and effective to be sure. And Auden, well, brilliant. Yet John Hannah's recitation of this in Four Weddings and a Funeral grabbed me and never let me go! When my daughter died fairly recently, way too young, of cancer, that was what I turned to0 Hannah's version of Funeral Blue's-and I sent it to my sister, who has not had or wanted kids0though she loves mine0-and it made her understand how I felt! So it helped in that way. It will always be there for me-truly, and it is a poem for the ages but it is regarding the immediate mourning of grief-at a funeral or memorial service, which we could have neither for my girl because her Dad had that very real broken heart syndrome and I had to get him to the hospital in our hometown and had to save his life. Her body was still in the morgue 3 hours away and it was so hard. He was too ill to have it and I had to protect him and take care of him-and her bewildered brother, who was like a terrific twin with her despite the big age difference between them. It is something one never "gets over", rather I believe it is a hard thing that will always be there and we must find a way to live around it, as she would definitely wanted. Sorry, folks, this is what I do. I go a thousand mph or am on STOP! I feel that this too shall pass and change into something different, but not having any kind of a service for her has made a tremendous difference in the way all of us have had to deal with our grief and C-PTSD, etc. from her loss. Beautiful inside and out and an artist and animal lover and kind, funny, smart, and true. Very true- knew herself! My joy, my heart, the one I got to spend the ,most time with . Thanks for indulging me. Best to ALL!
I too have lost a daughter, ts. Poetry, like all art, often helps us find ways to express the inexpressible. They can also help us mark solemn occasions. It is never too late to have a memorial service. In fact, researchers have found that marking small occasions, such as birthdays and memorials days (the day our loved one died) is helpful and normal. These small observances over the years give us a time and place for memory, tears and prayer. May you have moments of gentle memory amid your many tears in the long years ahead. When my daughter died, a friend sent this Celtic blessing to me, which I now send to you: May the beauty of her life be reflected in each tear that falls for her.
@@DavidBannonToday David, you had a "Jess" and I had a "Jenna". Jenna Rose to be precise. I had not read your 2nd reply to me when I wrote my sincere Thank you to you first. Please do accept my deepest and heartfelt thoughts of considerations on the loss of your precious one. A daughter- they are so 'daughter"-I believe you know what I mean, or else I'm being too obtuse! Don't mid being a little obtuse- good to confuse the one's who grate on ya'm don't cha know- (this is me having fun with words and ideas)-but really, I will now use the French phrase. Was that the Celtic blessing that you sent to me? I ended up on your actual site, and sorry, but I could not be sure I got it correctly. Please, for heaven's sake, let me know and receive the Celtic blessing that you so generous shared- I need it! I feel very fortunate to have happened upon your channel and have set it to follow and be alerted. I love that story about your Jess and the e year old recitation of the burly voiced Japanes man from the night before!! :). My daughter had an ear for accents and copying in her own way and it was delightful and funny! We played games where we would make up languages and words and have conversations with each other. So much fun- laughing and laughing and we could usually understand each other because of "talking with our faces" and eyes and gestures, too. My son tells me to this day that I "talk with my face." I have an ear for accents but often I know not that I'm doing it and have, I'm afraid, sounded as though I was making fun of, et's say randomly, an Italian waiter whom I ordered in an Anglo-Italian accent when I placed for order. One of many examples. I feel badly afterwards because I was not aware of doing it! Through the years I have tried sincerely to be more aware and would always , vbefor that, find a way to smooth it over with them so they realized I was not being saucy and unfeeling! I would hate it if that were the case. Once, my daughter fell and scraped her knee badly enough to need some Mommy medical attention- which I also did all the time as a kid-what a tomboy I was- I digress. I took her in the house and found the room in my Mother and Father-in-laws house where they kept the medical supplies.After we had washed it and dried it and were ready to continue with the rest, I told her that it might burn and I would blow on it to help but if she wanted or needed to cry it was fine. Just not to wiggle and make it hard, which of course she did not because she was brave. I ha said, "It is okay it you cry. After all, you are just a six year old little girl." She looked at me in a way that made me stop and said very distinctly, "No, I'm not I'm a 6 year old woman." And the way she emphasized woman- I'll never forget. And you know, she just may have been. Some nearly 50 year old memory that I cherish. There was not a day that ever went by that I don't have memories of her saying or doing something that I think of. She was working full time and going to school when the first of her illnesses hit, in her early 20's. I am very grateful to have found this site that you have so lovingly, truthfully, intellectually and emotionally hits the crux of the matter and also flutters around the main subject, with the delicacy of butterflies wings. Which we all know that if a butterfly opens and closes it's wings on the other side of the world, it has an effect on the other side of the planet- it feels a lot like that since my daughter died-that without her on this planet many things that did and were going to happen stopped. Thank you. Terri Spencer-Williams
@@ts-eu6mp Thank you for these lovely stories of Jenna. It takes some 4-6 years to put a death in perspective, counselors assure us, and even then many of us struggle to focus on the happy memories, the small joys that now mean so much to us. Harriet Sarnoff Schiff wrote in her book, The Bereaved Parent, that reviewing past mistakes with our now dead children is worse than worthless, it is harmful. Still, memory is part of grief. We remember all of our times with our children, the good and the bad. This is why I wish for each of us gentle memories. They may not all be of the happiest times, but if they are gentle, we may in rare moments find we can make peace with all that they were to us, and all that we were to them---and continue love them as they surely continue to love us. I believe that to grieve is to love. Thank you for watching the video on the French phrase, "You are missing from me." That video was inspired by an essay that I posted on my (not-for-profit) author page, which may be interesting to read. Here's hoping the link works: facebook.com/ddbannon/posts/pfbid02LteaAkuuKWw27MDEqMqC2pS4DEcC3dZffqWXQVvKVJuTzeuX1WGfKXczh9LsoZLul
Lest anyone forget or is not informed, Auden wrote this as a satire spoof on romantic poetry. After John Hannah’s movingly serious readings of it in Four Weddings & a Funeral, we find it hard not to take it as a serious romantic poem. To the gutter w Auden’s mocking of true romantic feelings, probably due to his failure record in his love affairs.
Yet each person's experience of any art is validated by that experience. A poet or a writer must let a poem go ... release it ... and it becomes what each person believes it to be.
True. I had such a hard time with that knowledge. I thought it also made jest of the upper class and their ceremony of death…Auden and fascism? Another item to delve into.
