Quote from Refuge

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place 

by Terry Tempest Williams

Vintage Books, New York, New York, 1991        304 pages

I recall a barn swallow who had somehow wrapped his tiny leg around the top rung of a barbed-wire fence. I was walking the dikes at Bear River. When I saw the bird, my first instinct was to stop and help. But then, I thought, no, there is nothing I can do, the swallow is going to die. But I could not leave the bird. I finally took it in my hands and unwrapped it from the wire. Its heart was racing against my fingers. The swallow had exhausted itself. I placed it among the blades of grass and sat a few feet away. With each breath, it threw back its head, until the breaths grew fainter and fainter. The tiny chest became still. Its eyes were half closed. The barn swallow was dead.

Suffering shows us what we are attached to - perhaps the umbilical cord between Mother and me has never been cut. Dying doesn't cause suffering. Resistance to dying does. (p. 52)

-- quote submitted by Jack Y.


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