Both within and beyond
the confines of history
we might imagine that we were listening
to a continual funeral oration:

we have buried, and are still burying,
all that we have loved best,

our thoughts, and our hopes,
receiving in exchange pride, gloria mundi
—that is, the pomp of the graveside speech.

It is thus
that everything is made good!

Even at the present time
the funeral orator remains
the greatest public benefactor.

The Dawn Of Day, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by J. M. Kennedy, aphorism 520

A note was received from a good friend via email. A good number of his written lines were dedicated to the matter of the passing of his wife, just a few months ago. It is the case that we have no conception of death. ‘Death’ is a nearly empty abstraction of which we have no experience. By contrast however, for we the living, — the absence is felt deeply, persistently, demanding forms of expression, ritual, public ceremony.

Nietzsche writes that the splendor of language offered in memory of one that we loved, whose agency continues within our souls, —  is the greatest ‘gift’ that can be offered to the rest of us, the survivors.

Without question: “we have buried, and are still burying, all that we have loved best…”

The burying continues, does not end. One learns by increments, that loss is the hallmark of everything that is. Time is the canvas upon which the form and content of each life is manifest. Does it not remain for we the living, to offer fair but generous assessment, a summation, – to the best of our ability? Who has any position whatsoever from which to summarize their own life? That will remain for those we love…

This is by no means a morose note! Words timely and precise, awaken us to the nobility, the goodness that is this world’s life. And to the weight, or splendor, or delicacy which was, and continues to be expressed by those who have passed ahead of us.

---

A final note: from antiquity the memorial oration of Pericles as recorded by Thucydides is extended, magnificent, and worth reading. CLICK HERE