Tag: mortality

Meeting Mrs. D and Remembering My Existential Childhood…

· Nicole M. Roccas 6 Leave a Comment on %s

It was a hot, muggy morning last week, the final day of my month-long vacation in Wisconsin,  and my abdomen was in a state of turmoil. I’d later realize my stomach tumult was not indigestion but a bilious stone in the gallbladder I should have had removed years ago. I tried to focus on the task at hand…

Spending the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross at a Funeral Home

· Nicole M. Roccas 1 Leave a Comment on %s

First of all, some context: I am currently co-teaching a course with Fr. Geoffrey Ready about death in the Orthodox tradition. One of the things we come up against in this course is the fact that death in our culture is kind of a black box–people go in, they die, a bunch of paperwork (right?), then there’s a…