A Catholic Grief Observed
How the Loss of a Loved One Is an Unexpected Gain
by David Paul Deavel
My mother died in July and I only went back to daily Mass the following February. I went on Sundays because I had to. For many months, I left the practice of reading several chapters of Scripture a day, given up only in the chaos of my mother’s funeral, undone. I gave up praying as I drove over to a nearby suburban elementary school on Saturday mornings to play basketball. I did not go very often, and when I did, the radio didn’t blare (I am too old for that); no, it simply played loudly enough to distract me—as I tried to avoid entering my own thoughts too deeply.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
David Paul Deavel , a doctoral student at Fordham University, is associate editor of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture and a contributing editor of Gilbert Magazine, a magazine dedicated to the work of G. K. Chesterton.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
19.10—December 2006
Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
