Almost Everything by Anne Lamott

Author:Anne Lamott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Bitter Truth

Chocolate with 81% cacao is not actually a food. Its best use is as bait in snake traps. Also, as a shim to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible.

Don’t let others make you feel unsophisticated if you reach middle age preferring Hershey’s Kisses. So many of your better people do. Also, always carry a handful of Kisses in your backpack or purse to give away. People will like you more.

EIGHT

In the Garden

An elderly friend asked me one day when we wandered through a church garden and it started to rain what three things I would share with her young relative who fears death, as she knows I view death mostly as a significant change of address.

The first thing I told her is that I have been on hand to help people cross over, been there for days and months at the end of a person’s life, and while I would prefer that all deaths be swift and sweet, without dementia or pain, every death has been rather beautiful.

Second, the more time you spend in the presence of death, the less you fear it. Your life will be greatly enhanced by spending time with dying people, even though you’ve been taught to avoid doing so.

Third, death is not the enemy; snakes are. And cheese: it is addictive and irresistible. I have had three kinds so far today.

Shakespeare said we all owe God a death. That’s very nice. If I were God’s West Coast representative, I would try to work out some of the loan details of having to die. We can all agree that children should be exempt, that dementia should always be the spaced-out dithery kind (and not involve screaming), that pain should always be manageable, and that wars should be avoided through wise diplomacy, goodwill, and political sanity. In lieu of these codicils, though, while people in dreadful pain of any kind may long for the solace of a divine continuing manifestation, what we can offer is to stay with them faithfully. This may not seem like a lot until we show up for you, which we will.

I asked my friend in the garden if I could add a few more thoughts that might help put her dear relative’s mind at ease. This is what I told her.

Anytime you investigate how scary and bad loss is, it becomes a lot less bad, and a lot less bad is a small miracle. The great paradox is that drawing nearer to death will help begin to put it in the rearview mirror. Then, instead of living in unconscious fear of its arrival, crashing our party, we accept it as one of the musicians, like the old donkey on his way to Bremen to play the lute.

And I promise that the people you lose here on this side of eternity, whom you can no longer call or text, will live fully again both in your heart and in the world. They will make you smile and talk out loud at the most inappropriate times.

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