L.’s daughter died last weekend in a car wreck. She was one of more than two hundred people who were killed last weekend in cars. If as many people had died in a plane crash, it would have been headline news. Yet deaths on the highways aren’t really news, except to friends and family, or unless someone famous is involved. It’s a tragedy for a woman to die that young. It’s a tragedy that her boyfriend, who was behind the wheel, had been drinking. It’s a tragedy that this is such an ordinary tragedy.
Independent, Reader-Supported Publishing
Sy Safransky's Notebook
May 2001
Correspondence
The Sun is a state of grace. It relentlessly asks the question “What does it mean to be human?” And it asks the sufferers, not the philosophers. The Sun’s pages are like modern sutras written for the longing, waiting, and vigilant heart.
In his May 2001 “Notebook,” Sy Safransky writes, “I’m here in the early-morning darkness, a congregation of one.” To him, I say: You are one, but make no mistake, you are one of many. There are plenty of us reaching out in the morning darkness. You, of all people, are not alone. Your many readers take refuge in the dharma of these pages that you painstakingly churn out each month. You are supported on all sides. You help us to know that, out of the early-morning darkness, the sun will rise. So continue with “the luxury of tears.” The wet warmth gives us life and ties us together as we learn what it is to be human.
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May 2001
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