You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
My Dear Friend,
Since your death, I have been reading the greats in poetry—needing to find just the right words to express the essence and depth of my profound grief for you—you who were so good with words, deserve nothing less. My offerings felt like empty containers incapable of holding or conveying the meaning of my love, the enormity of my sorrow. I had to have beautiful words! And so I turned to Shakespeare, to Donne and Wordsworth, to Herrick and Shelley. Their words—although lovely—didn't help. In my head, a poem by Dylan Thomas echoed: “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” It, more than the others, seemed to vividly link MY feelings of rage and loss: RAGE against MY deprivation, RAGE against OUR loss, RAGE against YOUR premature death, RAGE against the injustice of it all. And, it seemed to exemplify the determination and passionate intensity by which you lived your life:
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in green bay,