Category: death-and-dying-twilight

Too Pretty for Him
Why I Volunteer II In my volunteer job at Urban Ministries of Durham, that Thursday was a weird day; a tropical storm was headed our way, so a lot of people hadn’t come out. On the other hand, and this happens periodically, street people who don’t qualify for the homeless shelter (perhaps because they drink or ...
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The Gentle Giant
Guys I’ve Done Time With: Creston Baumunk 1948-2013 What Is Friendship? I remember the first time I ever talked to the man, when we were standing in the lunch line at Shady Side Academy Middle School in eighth grade. We’d acquired some new students that year, and several were giants, towering over the rest of us. Creston ...
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The Man Who Held the Records
Bruno Sammartino 1935-2018 In the Pittsburgh neighborhood where I grew up there was a drugstore a block from my house where a kid could hang out. There was a fountain at the front where the guy made great milkshakes, and some magazines and comics at the back that were off to one side, so the pharmacist ...
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Nights of Terror
Seven Days of One Long Moment The question—which I’ve asked on this website before—is: what is the nameless dread that I feel before sesshin begins, the fear that periodically grips me in the pit of my stomach? What am I afraid of? I seemed to have less of it this year. I had uneasy moments, but didn’t ...
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Can’t Face It Anymore
When the Life Force Can’t Fight the Death Wish I was talking to a friend I meet every week for lunch and we were catching up before we ordered. “I had to go to a funeral this weekend,” Tom said. “I told you my neighbor died, didn’t I?” “I don’t think so,” I said. “How did he ...
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He Showed Up
Levi G. 1953-2017 I won’t say that Levi was my best friend in the world—I have many wonderful friends—but he was the friend with whom I most resonated. When I was in Asheville we met every week for a couple hours, having breakfast and drinking coffee. As soon as we sat down we fell into the ...
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Man’s Search for Meaning
While Life Goes On All Around When spiritual pilgrims went to visit the great Indian saint Vimala Thakar and unexpectedly got to see her, they asked her the purpose of life. “To live,” she said. A Zen Master couldn’t have said it better. When I was in high school I read—with what I remember as an utter lack ...
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Overwhelmed
The Happiness that Takes Some Time to Ripen We had sat down for the reception at my niece’s wedding—tables of eight arranged all around the room—when I realized how my brother had seated us. It was the three living siblings from my generation—Bill, Rusty, and me, with our wives—along with our sister’s oldest child Tade and ...
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My Father’s Gaze
Is That Me or Is It Him? I look into the mirror sometimes these days and see—to my astonishment—my father’s face staring back at me. The man died 52 years ago, and didn’t reach nearly the age I am now; he was 47, and I’m 68. Life had been hard on him at the end, wasted ...
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Back from the Dead
Reflections on Rohatsu Sesshin Why am I doing this? comes up sooner or later on sesshin, usually by the fourth or fifth afternoon, when I’m bone weary, blinking back sleep, the winter daylight starting to wane—that melancholy moment—and I’m staring at the wall without much focus or resolve. Why am I doing this? I sit there ...
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Sunday Afternoon of the Soul
Sitting Rohatsu Sesshin In the twenty years I’ve been practicing at the Chapel Hill Zen Center, I’ve missed four days of Rohatsu sesshin, which takes place during the first week of December. The first time was when my sister got married to her second husband. I was the Ino that year, and when I got the ...
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True Book Man
Jay Dantry 1928-2016 When I look back on the influences on my life, I think readers have been more important than writers, and bookstores more important than teachers. That isn’t to diminish the influence of men like Reynolds Price and Wallace Fowlie at Duke, or my high school teacher David Britton, who was a huge help. ...
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