Wednesday, April 25, 2007
My sympathy to you as you grieve Valborg's death.
I have always found John Donne's words from his "Devotions upon Emergen Occasions," Meditation XVII pertinent to consider when someone dies. I quote a passage here .
The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all...And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: 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...God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. [Donne goes on with words that inspired Hemingway]: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main....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, 1624.
Even though I did not know Valborg, I felt a connection to her and her family as soon I read all those Norwegian names in her obituary. They bring back to mind all of my Norwegian ancestry.
My thoughts are with you, her family, as you commit her to her God.
Lisbeth Johnson
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