Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

by Margaret Renkl

But the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin. My mother was twelve when Mama Alice died. Papa Doc sat down on the porch and settled there, staring at the rambling rosebushes growing beside the road. “He just made up his mind to die, I guess,” my mother always said. “He lasted barely more than a month.”

Why is the measure of love loss? @MargaretRenkl #LateMigrations

He is howling for his long life’s lost companion, the dog who died last year and left him to sleep alone. He is howling for his crippled hips, so weak he can hardly squat to relieve himself. He is howling because it’s his job to protect this house, but he is too old now to protect the house. He is howling because the world is empty, and he is howling because he is still here.

Sometimes I don’t even want them to move away. I lie in bed before light and listen to the sound of their feet skittering across my ceiling, and the sound of the acorns they’re rolling across it, storing food for winter. They are old friends. Their busy life above my dark room is a lullaby.