Absent – Page 2

Absent opens a door

Absent opens a door to a view of Iraqi life we have seldom seen. With a compassionate eye Khedairi explores a community, damaged by wars and sanctions, struggling for survival. Elizabeth Cox

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart. Elizabeth Bowen

The heart may think

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. Elizabeth Bowen

We have really no

We have really no absent friends. Elizabeth Bowen

I made cranberry sauce,

I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they’d slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives … Read more

Unless you can muse

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past Oh, … Read more

The pain of loneliness

The pain of loneliness is one way in which he wants to get our attention. We may be earnestly desiring to be obedient and holy. But we may be missing the fact that it is here, where we happen to be at this moment and not in another place or another time, that we may … Read more

Bountiful is your life,

Bountiful is your life, full and complete. Or so you think, until someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul—the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be … Read more

Absence makes the heart

Absence makes the heart grow fonder Eleanor Roosevelt

Emotional damage is never

Emotional damage is never easy to measure, but mothers who are alive but psychically absent impose filial burdens which knot their children’s feelings in a way biologic orphans are spared. Eileen Simpson