Loss and the Limits of One’s Art

By Grace Bauer

Grief. It’s a destination we try to avoid but all arrive at eventually. It’s as common as the dirt we all end up in. Or as. Impossible to live with. Or without. Loss a fact of life. There are as many ways to lose our dearly beloveds as there are to love them.

There’s the slow, often painful, decline of someone’s aging body—life refusing to let them go even when they say they’re ready to leave. Or the loss of memory, a slippage so disturbing because it can look, to those w...