BEFORE WE CAN KNOW what natural warmth really is, often we must experience

loss. We go along for years moving through our days, propelled by habit, taking life pretty

much for granted. Then we or someone dear to us has an accident or gets seriously ill,

and it’s as if blinders have been removed from our eyes. We see the meaninglessness of so

much of what we do and the emptiness of so much we cling to.

     When my mother died and I was asked to go through her personal belongings, this

awareness hit me hard. She had kept boxes of papers and trinkets that she treasured,

things that she held on to through her many moves to smaller and smaller accommoda-

tions. They had represented security and comfort for her, and she had been unable to let

them go. Now they were just boxes of stuff, things that held no meaning and represented

no comfort or security to anyone. For me these were just empty objects, yet she had clung

to them. Seeing this made me sad, and also thoughtful. After that I could never look at

my own treasured objects in the same way. I had seen that things themselves are just what

they are, neither precious nor worthless, and that all the labels, all our views and opinions

about them, are arbitrary.

     This was an experience of uncovering basic warmth. The loss of my mother and the pain

of seeing so clearly how we impose judgments and values, prejudices, likes and dislikes,

onto the world made me feel great compassion for our shared human predicament. I remember

explaining to myself that the whole world consisted of people just like me who

were making much ado about nothing and suffering from it tremendously.

     When my second marriage fell apart, I tasted the rawness of grief, the utter groundlessness

of sorrow, and all the protective shields I had always managed to keep in place fell to

pieces. To my surprise, along with the pain, I also felt an uncontrived tenderness for other

people. I remember the complete openness and gentleness I felt for those I met briefly in

the post office or at the grocery store. I found myself approaching the people I encountered

as just like me—fully alive, fully capable of meanness and kindness, of stumbling and falling

down, and of standing up again. I’d never before experienced that much intimacy with

unknown people. I could look into the eyes of store clerks and car mechanics, beggars and

children, and feel our sameness. Somehow when my heart broke, the qualities of natural

warmth, qualities like kindness and empathy and appreciation, just spontaneously emerged.

     People say it was like that in New York City for a few weeks after September 11. When

the world as they’d known it fell apart, a whole city full of people reached out to one another,

took care of one another, and had no trouble looking into one another’s eyes.