Loss

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Tributes

About that…

It needs to be said that the most painful of all losses are those we suffer outside of public view. Those are the losses that are rarely written about, the losses that leave us with part of our souls gone and the days that will forever be missing the breath of another.

We have had a year of treasured public icons gone from our lives. One of the most significant of the adored is Dolly Parton, dead, gone from the human domain. On the night of Tuesday, August 25, 2026, the Empire State Building’s tower lights sparkled in pink from 9:25 p.m. to 10:25 p.m. as a tribute to Parton, who died the same day. Her songs were sung and played throughout the nation. Other countries, the world mourned her loss and named her accomplishments, generosity, and compassion.

Every death, every new reminder, serves to push at what had been a momentary pause in our own stone storehouse of loss. Stunning or surprising, we add another to our of mansion of memories, integral pieces of the lives that once were.

Grief is just a word. Yet the pain that it resurfaces unites all parts of us. Our mind, our body, our soul become one in pain. The worst of it is when we dream and the dream conjures the dead one—the child’s hand, the words, the soft brown eyes of the dog barking at the door, the young man walking toward me. And then we awaken. And then learn all over again it wasn’t a mistake at all. We are empty.

To say some of the things we hear said are puzzling only speak to our loneliness. “As long as someone lives in another’s memories, they are not dead.” How can that possibly make any sense? Yes they are. They are not here. “Well at least she’s at peace now.” She maybe, but I’m not. Not yet. We know that the loss happens to us, not to the dead.

Things fall apart.

After the first pains of mourning we play memory tributes. Those words of “remember when.” With the wonderful famous people who die, we can make public honors. We can acknowledge them and their good works. Most important, they can represent the stages in our lives. They sing not only of when we were, but who we were becoming and would become. Perhaps even who we still will become.

These are the ones I’ll forever be grateful to. These are the ones for whom I feel honored to have had them in my life.

GLORIA STEINEM

The Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off

DOLLY PARTON

JESSE JACKSON

TIM CURRY

BOB WEIR

CATHERINE O”HARA

CHUCK NORRIS

WENDELL BARRY

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Jimmy Dean

Happy Birthday! And another repeat performance. Yet another loss. How we might have enj0yed him through the years. Not to be.

“The acting of James Dean is more animal than human. For this reason, it is unpredictable: what will happen next?” Francois Truffaut, Cahier du Cinema

“Jimmy may have had crabs, but he also had durable charisma.” Kenneth Anger, Hollywood Babylon II

Born on this day: cinema’s bongo drum-playing quintessential doomed 1950s bad boy, James Byron Dean (8 February 1931 – 30 September 1955) – one of the most lusciously photogenic actors of all time. Pictured: portrait of Dean by Roy Schatt, 1954.

Posted by Lobotomy Room.

Someone once said that Dean was not at all the same person off camera. You would not know what you had until the camera made love to him. And indeed it did. It made him larger than life. Someone else once said upon meeting him you knew he was doomed. He was just plain too much and too small for this world. It was impossible to sustain.

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Loss

The Beauty Of Planet posted this poem. I thought it was worth posting. I also think it’s worth noting that it’s not death we’re dealing with, but loss. It isn’t that they’re dead, it’s that they stay dead.

YOU DON’T JUST LOSE SOMEONE ONCE
You lose them over and over,
sometimes in the same day.
When the loss, momentarily forgotten,
creeps up,
and attacks you from behind.
Fresh waves of grief as the realisation hits home,
they are gone.
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once,
you lose them every time you open your eyes to a new dawn,
and as you awaken,
so does your memory,
so does the jolting bolt of lightning that rips into your heart,
they are gone.
Again.
Losing someone is a journey,
not a one-off.
There is no end to the loss,
there is only a learned skill on how to stay afloat,
when it washes over.
Be kind to those who are sailing this stormy sea,
they have a journey ahead of them,
and a daily shock to the system each time they realise,
they are gone,
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once,
you lose them every day,
for a lifetime.
Credit: Donna Ashworth

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This

What it is like until the other dies. And why it is more than final when gone. And why longing has new meaning, a new edge. Another part of self erased.


“I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.”
Jeanette Winterson – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Posted by Ravenous Butterflies

Richard Bergh – Nordic Summer Evening, 1899-1900
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Janis

NPRdjanis

Posted by NPR

She died some time this week, 47 years ago. Forty-seven years. I was driving down some street in Iowa City on my way to university when I heard the news on the radio. And there it was. The first thoughts are…No…No…what now?…who will sing those songs for us…who will know?…No…

When I got to the classroom it was silent. No one saying a word. The students in their chairs, the prof standing in front, leaning against the desk. In that silence, in that room on a beautiful day in Iowa City, we were struck. In the confusion of loss and sorrow

APjanisJoplin

AP—Janis Joplin, Woodstock

it was as if we all knew, all at once, that words could not—should not—be spoken. There was that current underneath, that whirlpool of something else that made words insignificant. There would never be enough, never enough of anything. No one else spoke Soul to Soul. No one else could sing the Blues. She was lost to us, and it was we, we who could not save her.