To All You Who Sleep Tonight

Vikram Seth

(1952- )

To All You Who Sleep Tonight

All you who sleep tonight

Far from the one you love,

No hand to left or right,

And emptiness above.

Know that you are not alone

The whole world shares your tears,

Some for two nights or one,

And some for all their years.

I have spent many nights alone in a hotel room and had many meals alone in some Lonely Guy Café. My work requires it. I know a little bit about sleeping alone on a king-size bed, but I’m not widowed or divorced. I have someone to come home to. Even so, the last line of this poem lands a blow.

I wonder about my mother, widowed and living the last seventeen years of her life without her husband. I have a growing number of friends and acquaintances who must figure life out by themselves. Vikram Seth is speaking some hard truth here, but he also provides some solace: “Know that you are not alone.” I hope there is comfort in this. I sometimes tell my wife that I am calling dibs on dying first and she quickly replies that she called it before I did. Neither of us wants to experience the emptiness of sleeping, or living, alone.

This poem comes to me when I see, mainly at wakes and funerals, the grief that loss creates. Some years ago, my wife and I attended the funeral of a neighbor’s wife. Fred and Carol were one of those couples who were always together, and he adored her. The funeral was sad, but they had a long life together, so it didn’t seem as tragic as when young lives are cut short.

As the casket was wheeled down the center aisle of St. Walter’s, flanked by the pallbearers, we turned to watch the procession. Then I saw Fred and I suddenly realized what grief-stricken looked like. My wife reached for my hand because she was overwhelmed by the sadness and yearning in Fred’s face. Fred walked slowly, just behind the casket, keeping his trembling hand on it as if to gently comfort Carol. It was at the same time beautiful and frightening.

I did not know this poem at that time. But there is something about this poem that can enrich the present by adding depth and feeling to the past. I think of Fred and Carol from time to time. If someone says the word “grief” or “grief-stricken” I am immediately taken back to that moment in church. Fred’s passed away, too, and when I think about him, I have this poem to offer in hope: “Know that you are not alone, the whole world shares your tears.”