3 min read
1 memoir rec, Salman Rushdie
3 sentences
On dying and Buddhism
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I have missed writing to you, dear reader, sharing in this letter what I’ve lived or learned, especially as it relates to writing or reading. Pain and sorrow have a way of consuming a person, but these months have not been without tender moments and joy.
Oddly, I found comfort in Salman Rushdie’s memoir and if you’re a believer in signs, you may find the opening sentence compelling, at least in my case.
At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife…
Knife – Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
My mother died at 4:04 pm on a Tuesday, 30 days ago. It was August 12.
What?! Rushdie nearly died on August 12! I read on. I read in the witching hours when sleep eluded me.
According to her Buddhist belief, my mother is in the bardo–the intermediate state of 49 days between death and rebirth. This is all fairly new to me, though when my father died sixteen years ago, I joined her at the temple to make offerings for his peaceful transition.
In death we are all yesterday’s people, trapped forever in the past tense.
Knife, p. 11
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Are the dead trapped in the past tense?
I agree and I do not agree.
Because she is in the bardo, I refer to my mother in the present tense. When I visit her home I sit at the altar where her picture now resides next to my father’s. And, I talk to her. I visit my father’s grave to update him.
“Hi Dad, Mom is now in her Virginia temple after I dropped off her ashes.”
She (her ashes) resides next to her photo and next to the photos of beloved friends who have also departed this earthly realm. This made me feel much lighter, leaving her in a place she loves and knowing she is among friends. Carrying around the remains of your parent is sobering. Her monk will pray for her each day through September 30th, the 49th day since her death.
Dead in the present tense. See what I mean?
To catch you up, my mother Huong Buu Brewster was diagnosed before Easter with pancreatic cancer and that was around the last time I wrote a TreeHouseLetter.
I have been my mother’s keeper since and began her vigil on July 28th, the same day I submitted the manuscript of my memoir to the publisher. That day was a pivot, a transfer of attention and time, a shift in devotions.
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A friend asked me what I learned during in-home hospice for my mother.
Compassion for the dying.
Towards the end of Rushdie’s memoir is a final sentence I want to share.
Time might not heal all wounds, but it deadened the pain, and the nightmares went away.
Knife, p. 193
No nightmares yet though I wake often and I wonder. And writing the TreeHouseLetter helps me feel I’ve returned, and am back among the living.
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I’m working with the publisher on cover art for my upcoming book with tentative publication date of early 2026. If you’ve made it this far and are reading this, thank you.
Writing is better when it’s read and I am grateful to you.
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FOOTNOTES
*It is not without notice that today is September 11th. My thoughts are with the many families, loved ones, and friends whose lives changed forever on that fateful day.
*Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (New York: Random House, 2024)
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