Condolences to James Joyner
Deepest condolences to blogger James Joyner of Outside the Beltway on the sudden and unexpected loss of his wife Kimberly Webb Joyner, 41. You can leave a comment at the link.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
As one who has lost my own wife I can feel his pain it is real and not forgiving.
Don’t think somehow it will get better it won’t.
My mother died at age 29 quite unexpectedly after giving birth to my youngest sister. My father remarried 6 years later, but he was never the same man. The loss of a spouse at so young an age, so unexplained is heartbreaking.
I feel for those children. I was one of them, once. Those memories never really fade, but they come back with vivid pain and surprise when I least expect it.
Nobody Really –
I know from bitter experience, you are correct. It does not get better.
I hope you and Jewel can appreciate the following lengthy quote from Montaigne, written after losing his dear friend Etienne de la Boetie:
“For in truth, if I compare the rest of my life with the four years which ere granted me to enjoy the sweet company and society of that man, it is nothing but smoke, nothing but dark and dreary night. Since the day I lost him,
‘Which I shall ever recall with pain / Ever with reverence – thus, Gods, did you ordain -‘ (Virgil)
I only drag on a weary life. And the very pleasures that come my way, instead of consoling me, redouble my grief for his loss. We went halves in everything; it seems to me that I am robbing him of his share,
‘Nor may I rightly taste of pleasures here alone / So I resolved, when he who shares my life is gone,’ (Terence)
I was already so formed and accustomed to being a second self everywhere that only half of me seems to be alive now.
‘Since an untimely blow has snatched away / Part of my soul, why then do I delay / I the remaining part, less dear than he / And not entire surviving? / The same day brought ruin to him and me.’ (Horace)
There is no action or thought in which I do not miss him, as indeed he would have missed me…
‘Brother, your death has left me sad and lone;
Since you departed all our joys have gone,
Which while you lived your sweet affection fed;
My pleasures all lie shattered with you dead.
Our soul is buried, mine with yours entwined;
And since then I have banished from my mind
My studies, and my spirit’s dearest joys.
Shall I ne’er speak to you, or hear your voice?
Or see your face, more dear than life to me?
At least I’ll love you to eternity.’ (Catullus)”
– From “On Friendship.”
Life has few comforts to offer the broken. So God created Montaigne to speak to us.
He met his wife later on and started his real life after accomplishing so very much. And now he writes a rational and brief but thorough account of his loss. We have not heard the last from this man. Or perhaps his daughters. This union between husband and wife, cut searingly short, has still met a purpose. There are no tragedies in God’s plan, but still we pray him stength and our support.