{"id":13487,"date":"2026-08-03T23:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T03:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/how-to-live-and-how-to-die\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T23:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T03:50:29","slug":"how-to-live-and-how-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/how-to-live-and-how-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Live and How to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

“Leave something of sweetness and substance in the mouth of the world.”<\/h3>\n
\n

I lost my darling friend Emily Levine<\/strong> (October 23, 1944–February 3, 2019) just as Figuring<\/em><\/a>, in which she rightly occupies the first line of the acknowledgements<\/a>, was being released. The book would not have existed without her, nor would The Universe in Verse<\/em><\/a> — several years earlier, Emily had swung open for me the doorway to the world of poetry in an incident of comical profundity emblematic of her singular and irreplaceable spirit, which I recounted with ample affection and no small dose of embarrassment about fifty minutes into the inaugural Universe in Verse<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

After her terminal diagnosis in 2016, I began taking Emily on periodic getaways in nature. We called them poetry retreats — weekends of soaring, meandering conversation, inventive cooking (one instance involving a thallus of kelp collected at low tide, which we had used as a dog leash before dining on it), and delicious poetry-reading, which we recorded on a phone as tender mementos from these precious hours, not fully realizing in the moment the bittersweetness of the act. <\/p>\n

This poem, originally published in The Sun<\/em><\/a> in 2010, is the last poem Emily read at the last poetry retreat three weeks before she returned her stardust to the universe.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

COLD SOLACE<\/strong>
\nby Anna Belle Kaufman<\/em><\/p>\n

When my mother died,
\none of her honey cakes remained in the freezer.
\nI couldn\u2019t bear to see it vanish,
\nso it waited, pardoned,
\nin its ice cave behind the metal trays
\nfor two more years.<\/p>\n

On my forty-first birthday
\nI chipped it out,
\na rectangular resurrection,
\nhefted the dead weight in my palm.<\/p>\n

Before it thawed,
\nI sawed, with serrated knife,
\nthe thinnest of slices \u2014
\nJewish Eucharist.<\/p>\n

The amber squares
\nwith their translucent panes of walnuts
\ntasted — even toasted — of freezer,
\nof frost,
\na raisined delicacy delivered up
\nfrom a deli in the underworld.<\/p>\n

I yearned to recall life, not death \u2014
\nthe still body in her pink nightgown on the bed,
\nhow I lay in the shallow cradle of the scattered sheets
\nafter they took it away,
\ninhaling her scent one last time.<\/p>\n

I close my eyes, savor a wafer of
\nsacred cake on my tongue and
\ntry to taste my mother, to discern
\nthe message she baked in these loaves
\nwhen she was too ill to eat them:<\/p>\n

I love you.
\nIt will end.
\nLeave something of sweetness
\nand substance
\nin the mouth of the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Taste a little more of the raisined delicacy of Emily’s voice with her bittersweet reading of “You Can’t Have It All”<\/a> — a buoy of a poem by Barbara Ras — then savor her extraordinary TED talk about learning to die<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Portrait by John Keatley<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

donating = loving<\/h3>\n

For seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian<\/em> (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings<\/em><\/a> for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant \u2014 a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation<\/a>. Your support makes all the difference.<\/p>\n

\n

newsletter<\/h3>\n

The Marginalian<\/em> has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week\u2019s most inspiring reading. Here\u2019s what to expect<\/a>. Like? Sign up.<\/a><\/p>\n