Sarah Manguso: Grief

“What is grief for?

Mechanical explanation: Pain directs my attention to an injury or insult and subsides once the injury or insult is mended or neutralized. The pain of loss subsides if I replace what I lost or adjust permanently to accommodate the loss.

Evolutionary explanation: Grief is a byproduct of attachment in social animals. The grief of loss teaches me to prevent potential loss of kin.

Religious explanation: God, the engineer of all that happens, knows best. All life is but a gauntlet ere I live again in heaven.

Real explanation: Love abides. There is no other solace.”
― Sarah Manguso, The Guardians: An Elegy