“I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.” ThinkingPlayBodyHandsMovingMotherCoursesLanguageAnimalGriefTalkingGraceImagineBabyDrinkBallsDiedExperimentsMilkHugAgain And AgainTrainersNewbornFluentNewborn BabyDrink Milk Book:The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel Source: The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
“The worst of it is over now, and I can't say that I am glad. Lose that sense of loss—you have gone and lost something else. But the body moves toward health. The mind, too, in steps. One step at a time. Ask a mother who has just lost a child, How many children do you have? "Four," she will say, "—three," and years later, "Three," she will say, "—four.” YearsMindChildrenI CanBodyMovingMotherThreeAsksLostLosesLossStepsGoneFourWorstGladOne Step At A Time Book:The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel Source: The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
“It was like that class at school where the teacher talks about Realization, about how you could realize something big in a commonplace thing. The example he gave--and the liar said it really happened--was that once while drinking orange juice, he'd realized he would be dead someday. He wondered if we, his students, had had similar 'realizations.' Is he kidding? I thought. Once I cashed a paycheck and I realized it wasn't enough. Once I had food poisoning, and realized I was trapped inside my body.” IfsSaidEnoughBodyBigsWould BeSchoolRealizingClassTeacherHappenedExampleStudentsDrinkingI RealizedRealizationSomedayLiarsTrappedOrangeJuiceCommonplacePaychecksPoisoningOrange JuiceFood Poisoning Author:Amy Hempel
