The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying

by Nina Riggs

Emerson felt that nature was the closest we can get to experiencing God, and he believed that in order to truly appreciate nature, you must not only look at it and admire it, but also be able to feel it taking over the senses.

her desperately needing to still be my mom, my desperately needing to prove to her how much I didn’t need a mom.

how to distill what matters most to each of us in life in order to navigate our way toward the edge of it in a meaningful and satisfying way.

Sometimes the most important thing is knowing when to quit. Sometimes being heroic is knowing when to say

enough is enough.

“[Nature] always speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is a perpetual effect. It is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us. . . . The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.

Neither of us know what to make of relying on Duke to save my life.

I love you. Of course we do. Why haven’t we been saying that all along?

“It’s about honoring the unknowing and the awkwardness and the mystery of dying,” he said. “It’s unsettling—and that’s okay.”

What if this is what death is: The engine beneath you steady; those that hold you strong; the sun warm?

Ginny texts me another one: “Kids: if you ever get freaked when you are making out with someone and you suddenly think oh shit my mom can see this, please know that if heaven exists, and if I am there, and if I can watch what you are doing, I will politely draw the curtains and give you your privacy. At least, I think that’s what I’ll try to do. No, maybe I will watch to make sure you don’t do something disgusting.”

Meaning: I never stop being amazed by how simultaneously cruel and beautiful this world can be.

Anniversaries make me nervous—the way you are supposed to be able to summon your feelings about someone or something because they match up with a day of the year.

Just to sit with her and

enjoy the quietness around her—the way so many children seem to love to do with their mothers without understanding how we disturb that quietness with our very presence.

Remember, says the world—you must die.

“At least I’m here with you,”

It feels impossible, as my days are filled with imagining how to wind things down, that someone my age is winding things up, preparing new life, getting ready to scrummle.