Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

by Camille Pagán

Because however gratifying it was to unleash all that anger bottled inside me, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe—just maybe—I was killing off a little bit of what was good in me in the process.

Pain is funny, isn’t it, the way it’s impossible to accurately recall once it’s gone?

physically and emotionally accurate.

You can do anything you want. Anything! How exciting is that?”

It’s permanence that distinguishes grief from other emotional pain.

The unfixable nature of never—that’s what makes it so terrible to bear.

his mother’s disheveled appearance and nonexistent housecleaning skills, which were her own silent form of retaliation.

But it now seemed we were on opposite sides of a rapidly expanding pond.

This is now, and feels happy because the now could not be forgotten as it was happening. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

Be present and not afraid of the future.

My conversation with my father had not been an epiphany so much as a reframing.

see the night sky clearly, you can’t overfocus;

it’s the stars outside of your direct vision that come in brightest.

to be compassionate with myself, even when my will is weak and my body fails me; to give myself freely to those I love, even when it means my heart may be broken; and to live fully and completely while I have the chance—just