"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies,
one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better
language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the
bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon
the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more
me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an
island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls; it tolls for thee."
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII
P always with G, as pain never apart from gain With the will to surviving, be all the pain gone, with smothering, frustrating, hollowness, misplacing, helplessness... Fading, passing, and sublimed to drops of honey at very last