Time Does Not Heal

Grief, memory, and the wounds that shape us

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This big lie announces itself with Hallmark confidence: “Time heals all wounds.” It has the ring of something chipped into a park bench. Like many phrases with a fine patina, though, it dissolves on contact with reality.

Some sayings at least earn their keep. “Buttering someone up,” for example, sounds deranged until you learn that in ancient India, the devout lobbed butter balls at statues of their gods to curry favour. (Margarine, one trusts, was sacri…