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4a3cc0e
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Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio W. H. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts," from Collected Poems Jane Austen Russell Banks, Continental Drift Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, translated by Alison Anderson Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader The Holy Bible Elizabeth Bishop Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives, translated by Natasha Wimmer"
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Will Schwalbe |
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2ad4519
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The world is complicated," she added. "You don't have to have one emotion at a time."
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Will Schwalbe |
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cfa0203
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What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?" It helped you remember that people aren't here for you; everyone is here for one another."
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Will Schwalbe |
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09e2e06
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We all have a lot more to read than we can read and a lot more to do than we can do. Still, one of the things I learned from Mom is this: Reading isn't the opposite of doing; it's the opposite of dying. I will never be able to read my mother's favorite books without thinking of her--and when I pass them on and recommend them, I'll know that some of what made her goes with them; that some of my mother will live on in those readers, readers w..
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Will Schwalbe |
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57e3ed3
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and sister and father and mother had. I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time.
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Will Schwalbe |
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8f319dd
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You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.
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Will Schwalbe |
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72c8fa7
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That's one of the amazing things great books like this do--they don't just get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people all around you, differently.
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Will Schwalbe |
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dd4c1c7
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The thank-you thing had been drummed into us intensely when we were growing up. We had three great-aunts, on my mother's side, who believed that when they dropped a present in the mail, your thank-you note should essentially bounce right back out of the mailbox at them. If it didn't, the whole family, cousins and second cousins and all, knew about your lack of gratitude (and, come to think of it, common sense, as the threat was always that ..
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Will Schwalbe |
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c56eac5
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We've reached a point in American history when death has become almost the last obscenity. Have you noticed how many of us refuse to say 'he or she died'? We're far more likely to say 'she passed away,' as though death were a sterile process of modest preparation, followed by shrink-wrapping, then rapid transit--where? Well, elsewhere. In short, it's the single thing we're loath to discuss in public.
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Will Schwalbe |
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eebada7
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Loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern world, so full of freedom, independence and our own egotistical selves." The young man can't think of anything to say in response. The truth of the statement is too stark for him."
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Will Schwalbe |
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b0f42eb
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What I suddenly understood was that a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your
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Will Schwalbe |
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2f35ece
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Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio W. H. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts," from Collected Poems Jane Austen Russell Banks, Continental Drift Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, translated by Alison Anderson Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader The Holy Bible Elizabeth Bishop Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives, translated by Natasha Wimmer" --
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Will Schwalbe |
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f65e052
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I can't see giving up real books," she said. "And I love that I can give away my books after I've read them. Think of the first edition of The Magic Mountain I'm giving Nico. It was printed along with the first copy that went to Mann himself. It's got a history."
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Will Schwalbe |
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7abb15a
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all over the world, the people always asked for the same thing: books. Sometimes even before medicine or shelter--they wanted books for their children.
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Will Schwalbe |
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8c3b0c2
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How does a doctor tell you that it's over, that there are things they could do but probably shouldn't, and that if your aim is quality of life and not quantity of life, there simply are no good next treatments?
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Will Schwalbe |
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f47826f
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I was learning that when you're with someone who is dying, you may need to celebrate the past, live the present, and mourn the future all at the same time. Yet
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Will Schwalbe |
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4526759
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That day at chemo, we talked once more about the ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. "I just really want to know which character dies. I've read the ending again and again," I said. "I hate not knowing." "I do too. That's why I always read endings first. But sometimes you just can't know what's going to happen, even when you know everything there is to know. So you prepare for the worst but hope for the best."
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Will Schwalbe |
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0e77fb1
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did manage to read some pages from a book that's also about how people can find strength they didn't know they had." "What book was that?" "The Book of Common Prayer," Mom answered. "Didion?" "No, Will." Mom's voice was somewhere between amused and exasperated. "The other one." And then she added, smiling: "Besides, I think the Didion is A Book of Common Prayer, not 'The Book.' "
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Will Schwalbe |
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d5fc9c9
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I did manage to read some pages from a book that's also about how people can find strength they didn't know they had." "What book was that?" "The Book of Common Prayer," Mom answered. "Didion?" "No, Will." Mom's voice was somewhere between amused and exasperated. "The other one." And then she added, smiling: "Besides, I think the Didion is A Book of Common Prayer, not 'The Book.' "
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Will Schwalbe |
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6ad9aef
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a philosophy called Naikan, developed by Ishin Yoshimoto. Naikan reminds people to be grateful for everything. If you are sitting in a chair, you need to realize that someone made that chair, and someone sold it, and someone delivered it--and you are the beneficiary of all that. Just because they didn't do it especially for you doesn't mean you aren't blessed to be using it and enjoying it. The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part o..
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Will Schwalbe |
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a02fac6
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We would also have to say goodbye to the joy of watching this next generation soak up the massive quantities of love their grandmother would have given them, and seeing them learn that there was someone in the world who loved them as much as their parents did: a grandmother who was delighted by all their quirks and who thought they were the most amazing creatures on earth. It was an idealized view of the future-but it was the one I carried ..
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Will Schwalbe |
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92ea5b1
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I gave people who didn't know what to say the best advice I could muster, which was that it was better to say anything rather than pretend that nothing was wrong. My hunch was that Mom would simply appreciate knowing that people were thinking of her.
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Will Schwalbe |
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6b80b9a
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I asked: "And I was very surprised by the ending. Were you?" "Of course not--I'd read it first."
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Will Schwalbe |
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053d20b
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asked: "And I was very surprised by the ending. Were you?" "Of course not--I'd read it first. I don't think I could have stood the suspense if I hadn't known what was going to happen. I'd have been way too worried."
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Will Schwalbe |
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bf4288a
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You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them.
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Will Schwalbe |
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a4fb262
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You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them. I don't think I'll ever get over Melanie's death in Gone With the Wind. But I'm still so glad I got to know her.
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Will Schwalbe |
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c7a95e6
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But people can be cruel in lots of ways, some very subtle.
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Will Schwalbe |
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73ee650
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Mom was often asked to give speeches about why she felt so committed to the cause of refugees. She would say, "Just imagine that you are awakened tonight by someone in your family who says to you, 'Put the things you treasure most in one small bag that you can carry. And be ready in a few minutes. We have to leave our home and we will have to make it to the nearest border.' What mountains would you need to cross? How would you feel? How wou..
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Will Schwalbe |
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a9a9f5c
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Everyone doesn't have to do everything... People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. I've had so much pleasure from beautiful and challenging things created by other people, things I could never made or do. I wouldn't trade that for anything.
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Will Schwalbe |
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c9c1506
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A father and his son are in a terrible car crash. The father is killed instantly--but the son survives, barely, his life hanging in the balance. He's rushed to the hospital and into surgery, but there's only one doctor there, and as soon as the doctor sees the boy, the doctor says, 'I can't operate on my own son!' How could this be, if the boy's father was killed in the crash?
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Will Schwalbe |
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ce248af
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Reading isn't the opposite of doing; it's the opposite of dying.
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Will Schwalbe |
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002a80c
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Reading isn't the opposite of doing, it's the opposite of dying
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Will Schwalbe |
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fb58413
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Pass the time?" said the Queen. "Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand."
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Will Schwalbe |
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14d3981
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And a piece of advice that she thought was one of the most important things she wanted to pass on: You should tell your family every day that you love them. And make sure they know that you're proud of them too.
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Will Schwalbe |
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46bfc08
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As we were talking, a social worker came in with a questionnaire. Did Mary (I thought it was odd that they always called her Mary even though her name was Mary Anne, and odder that Mom refused to correct them) have time for some questions? They were doing a study and wanted to see if she might be a fit.
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Will Schwalbe |
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a870a27
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This was not even a particularly big offense in the pantheon of book club crimes, where the worst sin one could commit was not to read the book in question--or, even worse, to lie about having read the book when, in fact, you'd simply seen the movie, a lie usually uncovered when you used the actor's name by accident. ("I love the part where Daniel Day-Lewis ...")"
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pantheon
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Will Schwalbe |
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98788c0
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Mom agreed but pointed out that she'd been doing the same with others too--talking about books with my sister and brother and some of her friends. "I guess we're all in it together," she said. And I couldn't help but smile at the other meaning of the phrase. We're all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one."
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Will Schwalbe |
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0528d4f
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We all owe everyone for everything that happens in our lives. But it's not owing like a debt to one person- it's really that we owe everyone for everything. Our whole lives can change in an instance- so each person who keeps that from happening, no matter how small a role they play, is also responsible for all of it. Just by giving friendship and love, you keep the people around you from giving up- and each expression of friendship or love ..
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Will Schwalbe |
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2a37531
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a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your blessings. And gratitude isn't what you give in exchange for something; it's what you feel when you are blessed--blessed to have family and friends who care about you, and who want to see you happy. Hence the joy from thanking.
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Will Schwalbe |
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f0fdf84
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Trust is all about instinct. If you had all the facts, you wouldn't need trust. Trust is what is required in the absence of proof. But I believe you can strengthen your instincts by testing them; every time you prove yourself right or wrong, they grow stronger.
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trust
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Will Schwalbe |
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62abd6d
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But the thing that made it most interesting is what it had to say about books and religion. I love how Brooks shows that every great religion shares a love of books, of reading, of knowledge. The individual books may be different, but reverence for books is what we all have in common. Books are what bring all the different people in the novel together, Muslims and Jews and Christians. That's why everyone in the book goes to such lengths to ..
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Will Schwalbe |
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d65472b
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One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in week..
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Will Schwalbe |
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234e718
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everyone doesn't have to do everything." she told me ."people forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support. i've had so much pleasure from beautiful things created by other people, things i could never make or do."
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Will Schwalbe |
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007322e
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One of the many things i love about bound books is their sheer physicality. Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind. But printed books have body, presence. Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old pictures frames,say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt. But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in week..
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Will Schwalbe |