I will break the political trance of this Project for a moment in a commitment to highlighting courageous writing that dares to approach something resembling the truth. Truth, after all, was the first and last victim of this last couple of years or campaigning. 

In an earlier Posting we approached the difference between pain and suffering. Our intrinsic mortality is the source of much suffering, even as we learn new methods to manage the pain of death and dying. Suffering tends to be the existential side of the same coin of the journey exiting this life.   Sarah Wildman a staff writer and editor in Opinion for the New York Times wrote an article (December 1, 2024) in the Times about the death of her 13 year old daughter called;  If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us? I will quote and recommend her article with a few of her words so powerful they would move a stone to tears.

“Every study on the subject I’ve read has found that the only way to mitigate the terrible comorbidities associated with losing a child — prolonged grief, anxiety, depression, inability to work, suicide, heart disease, untimely death — is with therapeutic intervention with a family in the time before a child’s death and then early, consistent grief work after.”

So we already know the path of ‘good’ in this matter. If we face the truth about life we know grief doesn’t provide its own life preserver. You and I and a courageous community are the potential life preservers if one is to be found. They say: “the truth will set you free” but free from what? Certainly Truth doesn’t eliminate tyrants, poverty, or bad weather. But it can set you free from the suffering that is inevitable when you personally deeply need the skills, support, or community necessary to face it.

Why then is this nation, so skilled in pain reduction, so overwhelmed by suffering. I think the answer lies somewhere on the path to knowing and facing the truth of mortality. Once we do that, perhaps the ensuing humility will move up the chains of consideration into our impoverished political realm. That uphill journey, I am afraid, is the-hard-sequence necessary to heal us and our nation.