![]() ![]() My permanent separation from Zesi was an ordeal that I have yet to completely repress and there have been times in my life when memories of Zesi have resurfaced as a result of my own madeleine moments - the sight of a similar dog, a sound of a bark, the wagging of a tail. I watched helplessly as Zesi stood upright with his whole body shaking before accepting that he was gone forever. And the way in which Zesi died would further traumatize me when I learned that our inhospitable neighbor, who did not like Zesi's barking, fed him a sausage full of poison. My deep relationship with Zesi and his untimely death was an experience that would leave its mark on me. I would consider my first encounter with grief to be the death of Zesi, my boyhood hound and the only pet I ever had. They may be expressed communally or personally but at the core, grief is about the absoluteness of loss in relation to an object of our love. The feelings may be conscious or unconscious. In basic terms, grieving for me is a subjective state of painful feelings and thoughts manifested when faced with the permanent separation or death of a beloved person or object. And although various psychological stage models of grief have been invented in order to try to understand grief, I often find them too mechanical due to the very subjective, or personal, nature of grief. There is no greater loss in life than the loss of a loved one. If only all grieving could be transmuted in a similar way, I mused, as I lay on that French beach. Proust would ultimately be credited with coining the phrase 'involuntary memory' for his Madeleine Effect, and in its simplest form it is identified as an instance when a smell or other sensory mechanism produces an involuntary and highly emotional reliving of events from our past. The narrator relates the incident as being completely involuntary and so vivid that it defied any reality he had ever experienced. As the story goes, the mere act of tasting or smelling the tea-soaked biscuit, not only triggers a childhood memory of him eating a madeleine with his aunt, it also reveals to him other memories of his childhood home and its surroundings. ![]() Put simply - as the narrator of Proust’s novel dips his French pastry called a "madeleine" into a cup of tea one day, he finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with vivid memories of his childhood. To this day, I cannot minimize the impact that Proust's most notable work, recognized not only for its length but also for its provocative themes, had on my thinking about memory and grief and I regretted waiting until well into my forties to have placed the tome on my summer reading list.Īnd since that summer, and after many years of teaching philosophy, I have come to realize that Proustian readers need not slug through all seven volumes in order to grasp the now not-so-hidden gem about involuntary memory, or the Madeleine Effect. Yet this seemingly Utopian setting, albeit enviable, would serve merely as a backdrop for what became my daily escape into Marcel Proust’s masterpiece entitled, “In Search of Lost Time”. Angelou led such an inspiring life, and leaves behind a remarkable legacy of hope for the world.It turned out to be one of the most memorable summer vacations in my lifetime - I found myself lying on a sunny, picturesque beach in the South of France being swept away, much like with waves, by the wafting scents of Provençal seaside cuisine and surrounding myself with three happy children building sea castles in the warm sand. “At this time of loss, I hope you can take some comfort in the fact that Ms. “Her moving writing generated compassion and empowerment in her country and around the world,” he said. “Her words on that occasion – that all 'have the power to fashion for this earth a climate where every man and every woman can live freely,' will forever resonate at the United Nations,” Mr. A Brave and Startling Truth tackled themes of human rights, peace and social justice. In 1995, she was invited by the UN to read a poem at its 50th anniversary commemoration. In 1993, she recited the landmark poem On the Pulse of Morning at United States President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. She followed that with a string of literary and academic triumphs. Angelou, who gained widespread fame in 1969 following the publication of her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which recounted in frank detail her coming-of-age in America's “Jim Crow” South. Angelou, who died Wednesday at her home in Winston Salem, North Carolina. “The United Nations owes her a particular debt of gratitude for her poem 'A Brave and Startling Truth', written for the 50th anniversary of our Organization,” the Secretary-General said in a letter sent out on behalf of the UN to the family and friends of Ms.
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