Ailis - almost 6 years / Noah - almost 4 years
I don't track days anymore. I have to stop and count on my fingers, now, to be sure of the years that have passed. Ah, they would be so big! Kindergarten, for Lissie, can you imagine...?!
Alas, I cannot.
They have made me a mother but I am deprived of the experiences that make up the stories that make you friends on the outside. Prison terminology seems appropriate to me; babyloss is too much like a life-long sentence for the wrongfully accused, or maybe involuntary committal to a psych ward. Except there is no release for good behavior, no cure, and even if you escape, finally, on a rainbow, there's still a part of your life that almost no one will ever be truly comfortable hearing about unless they've been there too.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.*
My heart is changed. It contains more than I ever thought possible. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and through its transformation I became half time-lord, half human, all whole. I have gained a perspective that is dizzying and grounding at once. The universe fits inside of me. Profound and simple and holy and profane. There is room for you too, and in you too.
Mama, mama, be calm. We know how to wait. We are not afraid.
Be calm, mama. We'll wait.
My children are extraordinarily zen. They cannot teach, but I can learn. I suppose that's rather zen in itself.
Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.**
Peace. Love. Light.
I am not broken, and neither are you.
*You do not have to be good, Mary Oliver
**Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
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You can read my previous years' posts here: Right Where I Am 2011 (Part I)(Part II) & Right Where I Am 2012, and link up with us on still life with circles.
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
May 31, 2013
October 29, 2012
capture, release
I went over the list, saved it on my computer. Read it again, closed it again. I am an avid photographer, like it or not; I could have completed the project easily enough. But in the end I didn't feel compelled to. It might have helped, early on. But grief is not something I want to capture, anymore. Those particular relics are not what I want to keep.
I am still the face. I have been captured by grief -- and then, without quite knowing the exact moment that it happened -- released. And I find I am able to return that favor, finally. And I am pleased, and pensive, and content.
I am still the face. I have been captured by grief -- and then, without quite knowing the exact moment that it happened -- released. And I find I am able to return that favor, finally. And I am pleased, and pensive, and content.
May 29, 2012
Right Where I Am: 2012
I saw the invitation from Angie on Thursday morning, and I've been attempting to write this post ever since. Opening, rewriting, saving, staring, deleting, closing. Where the hell am I, anyway?
Ironic, that this call to write comes hot on the heels of my decision to stop tracking the days since they died. It was making me feel sad, and stagnant, so I traded the tickers in my sidebar for simple memorial buttons. And I had no twinges about it.
Will you judge me very harshly if I say I don't miss them like I used to? Not that I don't miss them--of course I do. But it's not the same as it used to be.
I don't look around and see where they're not. I don't resent my space or my nice clothes or my paychecks spent only on me. I don't obsess about how big they would be or what milestones they would have achieved by now. I don't worry that total strangers can't have the faintest idea whether I'm a mother or not. That they might look at me and see just another fairly pretty twenty-something who seems to mostly have her shit together. I think the reason I don't worry about that anymore is because I've realized that it actually is who I am now. I've realized I'm not fooling anyone, including myself... because it's no longer a lie.
I've got necklaces and initials. I've got two boxes of baby clothes in the back of my closet. I've got their pages on my blog, and indelible ink on my left thigh: two little doves I designed myself. My wrists are bare, but if I didn't know better, I'd swear their names were written there too. An invisible list. Indelible in its own way.
S has seen my tattoo, and the pictures that hang by my bed. He hasn't asked who they are, and I haven't told. I will, eventually. But not yet. We've been seeing each other for two months; long enough that I realized yesterday it will hurt if we break up. The thought made my stomach drop. It means I'm invested now, you see.
My babies often cross my mind, but for the most part tend to move on quickly. A smile and a nod--they get it. Mama's busy. And anyway, they've got time. They understand forever. They know we've got all the time in the world.
I feel like they each took a piece of my heart with them, when they left. That it is with them, that piece, wherever they are. Always. Except they didn't leave behind a hole, as I first thought. Clever thieves! They filled that small but gaping space with eternity instead. I simply didn't recognize it right away, couldn't sense the shape of it, was confused by its unfamiliar weight. I did not know, at first, that what I thought was lonely emptiness was really the vast wholeness of all things.
----------
Last year's posts: Lissie. No-No.
Ironic, that this call to write comes hot on the heels of my decision to stop tracking the days since they died. It was making me feel sad, and stagnant, so I traded the tickers in my sidebar for simple memorial buttons. And I had no twinges about it.
Will you judge me very harshly if I say I don't miss them like I used to? Not that I don't miss them--of course I do. But it's not the same as it used to be.
I don't look around and see where they're not. I don't resent my space or my nice clothes or my paychecks spent only on me. I don't obsess about how big they would be or what milestones they would have achieved by now. I don't worry that total strangers can't have the faintest idea whether I'm a mother or not. That they might look at me and see just another fairly pretty twenty-something who seems to mostly have her shit together. I think the reason I don't worry about that anymore is because I've realized that it actually is who I am now. I've realized I'm not fooling anyone, including myself... because it's no longer a lie.
I've got necklaces and initials. I've got two boxes of baby clothes in the back of my closet. I've got their pages on my blog, and indelible ink on my left thigh: two little doves I designed myself. My wrists are bare, but if I didn't know better, I'd swear their names were written there too. An invisible list. Indelible in its own way.
S has seen my tattoo, and the pictures that hang by my bed. He hasn't asked who they are, and I haven't told. I will, eventually. But not yet. We've been seeing each other for two months; long enough that I realized yesterday it will hurt if we break up. The thought made my stomach drop. It means I'm invested now, you see.
My babies often cross my mind, but for the most part tend to move on quickly. A smile and a nod--they get it. Mama's busy. And anyway, they've got time. They understand forever. They know we've got all the time in the world.
I feel like they each took a piece of my heart with them, when they left. That it is with them, that piece, wherever they are. Always. Except they didn't leave behind a hole, as I first thought. Clever thieves! They filled that small but gaping space with eternity instead. I simply didn't recognize it right away, couldn't sense the shape of it, was confused by its unfamiliar weight. I did not know, at first, that what I thought was lonely emptiness was really the vast wholeness of all things.
----------
Last year's posts: Lissie. No-No.
May 16, 2012
a good life
Sometimes I think it's enough. Enough already. So much sadness. Death and sadness and sad pictures and sad faces and sad words and my baby died and maybe if I am sad enough no will forget that.
I don't want anyone to forget that. I love you, all of you. I'm not telling you not to be sad. Be whatever you are. Be sad forever if you want, if it seems right. But I am so tired. I don't want to be sad forever. And I think maybe it is enough.
The tickers crouch on my sidebar, calculating silently, and I don't look at them directly for ages. Or I look at them and the numbers jab at me like spindly fingers, sharp and accusing. Eyeball, heart, stomach, lung: poke, poke, poke. And it hurts. It hurts and it's sad and it's not helping. Maybe it is okay to lose count of the days. (What are hours and months and days, to an eternal creature? And aren't they all eternal, now? And if part of us is with them, isn't part of us eternal too?) I think I'll take the tickers down, once I've come up with something to replace them with.
My thoughts run where they will and I suppose it might look a little gloomy around here at times. I may seem to dwell overmuch on the macabre, I don't know. But I am happy. I am really fucking happy, actually. I have a good life, a better one than I've ever had before or ever would have thought I could have. Every day is better than the last--even when it doesn't feel like it is. The people in my life love me, I don't have to hide or be afraid. I am doing meaningful work that I am good at. I have friends. I am meeting new people. I am more and more myself. And I am not sorry for or ashamed of a single thing I have ever done.
If that is not a good life, I don't know what is.
I don't want anyone to forget that. I love you, all of you. I'm not telling you not to be sad. Be whatever you are. Be sad forever if you want, if it seems right. But I am so tired. I don't want to be sad forever. And I think maybe it is enough.
The tickers crouch on my sidebar, calculating silently, and I don't look at them directly for ages. Or I look at them and the numbers jab at me like spindly fingers, sharp and accusing. Eyeball, heart, stomach, lung: poke, poke, poke. And it hurts. It hurts and it's sad and it's not helping. Maybe it is okay to lose count of the days. (What are hours and months and days, to an eternal creature? And aren't they all eternal, now? And if part of us is with them, isn't part of us eternal too?) I think I'll take the tickers down, once I've come up with something to replace them with.
My thoughts run where they will and I suppose it might look a little gloomy around here at times. I may seem to dwell overmuch on the macabre, I don't know. But I am happy. I am really fucking happy, actually. I have a good life, a better one than I've ever had before or ever would have thought I could have. Every day is better than the last--even when it doesn't feel like it is. The people in my life love me, I don't have to hide or be afraid. I am doing meaningful work that I am good at. I have friends. I am meeting new people. I am more and more myself. And I am not sorry for or ashamed of a single thing I have ever done.
If that is not a good life, I don't know what is.
May 1, 2012
unless death
Unless death has tiptoed or
crash landed or
slipped or
body slammed its way
into your life
Unless death has
touched you, brushed
against you, gently
rested its cold hand on you while
it steadied itself
reaching for someone else
Unless death has
claimed someone you loved
more than anything else, more
than sun, more than air
more than all that is good
Unless death has
breathed
on the back of your neck while you tried
to will yourself to stop breathing because
you were holding someone
who was not breathing anymore, and who
you knew
would never breathe again
Unless you are
familiar with death
you might think it
in poor taste
to mention
Unless you have encountered it, face
to face, you might think it
a morbid thing
to dwell on and
you might not understand
what I mean when I say:
I wish we were closer friends, death
and I; Me and Death.
----------
I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago, and I started to write an essay based on it to submit to Glow, but ran out of time and ended up missing the deadline. Ah, well. Maybe next time. The essay is still not done, but I wanted to post the poem here, at least.
Do these thoughts resonate with anyone else?
crash landed or
slipped or
body slammed its way
into your life
Unless death has
touched you, brushed
against you, gently
rested its cold hand on you while
it steadied itself
reaching for someone else
Unless death has
claimed someone you loved
more than anything else, more
than sun, more than air
more than all that is good
Unless death has
breathed
on the back of your neck while you tried
to will yourself to stop breathing because
you were holding someone
who was not breathing anymore, and who
you knew
would never breathe again
Unless you are
familiar with death
you might think it
in poor taste
to mention
Unless you have encountered it, face
to face, you might think it
a morbid thing
to dwell on and
you might not understand
what I mean when I say:
I wish we were closer friends, death
and I; Me and Death.
----------
I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago, and I started to write an essay based on it to submit to Glow, but ran out of time and ended up missing the deadline. Ah, well. Maybe next time. The essay is still not done, but I wanted to post the poem here, at least.
Do these thoughts resonate with anyone else?
January 15, 2012
come morning light
Sad, but so well done I can't stop listening to it.
(And now, a beautiful video to go with it!)
December 24, 2011
bits and pieces
There is nothing left, nothing
but a box and
another, smaller box
which
contain
bits and pieces
ribbons, lace
cards and letters
the teeniest, tiniest
things:
brown monkey shoes
stripey shirts
a hat
a blanket
a book
a dress
all that is left
of the two of you, and
who I hoped
you'd be.
but a box and
another, smaller box
which
contain
bits and pieces
ribbons, lace
cards and letters
the teeniest, tiniest
things:
brown monkey shoes
stripey shirts
a hat
a blanket
a book
a dress
all that is left
of the two of you, and
who I hoped
you'd be.
November 6, 2011
October 8, 2011
raw
My consciousness streams like comets, like meteors. Streams like rivers running madly, racing to the sea. It could be like this all the time; this free flow of thoughts. This sea of ideas. But I am surrounded by sluices and dams, all meticulously handmade... I'm terrified of drowning, you see.
A seamless transition.
That's what we all hope for, isn't it. But does it ever really happen? Is it even possible? I don't know. I think it might be a thing we made up.
I feel like every change I've ever made has been wrenching, like ripping off a band aid--only not done and over then, quickly, like they say it will be, but awful and messy and the sting doesn't fade, it just gets overwritten eventually, maybe, by a new kind of sting that isn't any better, just different.
It is so abrupt, this wide world. Blatant. Blatantly kind; blatantly cruel. Lacking in subtleties.
Oh, subtlety.
How I long for quiet details, rather than this vast, raw experience I've had. Raw like meat. Raw like bones exposed. Raw like animals in the winter in the wild, cold, ravening, merciless. Harsh.
Weeks, months, years. My baby is dead, dead! And it guts me still, in the same beautiful, haunting way it always has and always will, except that my breaths get bigger, now, instead of smaller, and I am so excruciatingly alive I can hardly stand it. I want to cry and sing. Laugh and scream. Shake my fist at the falling sky. Dance. Dance. Dance.
I am alive.
Last night I dreamed I was pregnant, heavily so, and happy. Near the end of the dream, I thought my water broke, but I wasn't sure, because I'd never felt it before. It made me sad, in the dream. I didn't know what to do next, and I was so sad. I felt like less than the other mothers, the ones who had done this before. I felt that I should know.
I was still sad, when I woke up, still unsure.
There is indescribable pain radiating outward from behind my right shoulder blade, as if there were a massive hook through and through my flesh. (It's happened before, right there, though I couldn't tell you why.) I've been almost totally incapacitated for two whole days. Disheartening. I try to breathe into it, but it's deep deep down and it's boiling lava hot and it hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts, and I'd rather just lie as still as I can, and pretend it's not there.
Story of my life.
Oh god, it hurts. All of it hurts.
But I am fierce, and clever, and strong, and no one has completely gotten the best of me yet.
A seamless transition.
That's what we all hope for, isn't it. But does it ever really happen? Is it even possible? I don't know. I think it might be a thing we made up.
I feel like every change I've ever made has been wrenching, like ripping off a band aid--only not done and over then, quickly, like they say it will be, but awful and messy and the sting doesn't fade, it just gets overwritten eventually, maybe, by a new kind of sting that isn't any better, just different.
It is so abrupt, this wide world. Blatant. Blatantly kind; blatantly cruel. Lacking in subtleties.
Oh, subtlety.
How I long for quiet details, rather than this vast, raw experience I've had. Raw like meat. Raw like bones exposed. Raw like animals in the winter in the wild, cold, ravening, merciless. Harsh.
Weeks, months, years. My baby is dead, dead! And it guts me still, in the same beautiful, haunting way it always has and always will, except that my breaths get bigger, now, instead of smaller, and I am so excruciatingly alive I can hardly stand it. I want to cry and sing. Laugh and scream. Shake my fist at the falling sky. Dance. Dance. Dance.
I am alive.
Last night I dreamed I was pregnant, heavily so, and happy. Near the end of the dream, I thought my water broke, but I wasn't sure, because I'd never felt it before. It made me sad, in the dream. I didn't know what to do next, and I was so sad. I felt like less than the other mothers, the ones who had done this before. I felt that I should know.
I was still sad, when I woke up, still unsure.
There is indescribable pain radiating outward from behind my right shoulder blade, as if there were a massive hook through and through my flesh. (It's happened before, right there, though I couldn't tell you why.) I've been almost totally incapacitated for two whole days. Disheartening. I try to breathe into it, but it's deep deep down and it's boiling lava hot and it hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts, and I'd rather just lie as still as I can, and pretend it's not there.
Story of my life.
Oh god, it hurts. All of it hurts.
But I am fierce, and clever, and strong, and no one has completely gotten the best of me yet.
July 31, 2011
May 30, 2011
right where I am [part 2]
No-No: 1 yr, 8 mos
Ah, my son. My son.
There is a certain little boy who frequently visits the store where I work, with his mother and grandmother. He is roughly the same age as Noah would be, had he lived. He is also the same color: coffee with cream. Delicious. Gorgeous. Just what I always wanted. A year ago, looking at him made my chest cave in. (One day I literally had to hide, crouching behind my cash register, choking on dry sobs.)
He's toddling now. I saw him last week, holding on to his mama's finger and grinning like crazy over his latest accomplishment. I wanted to scoop him up and kiss him all over his sweet face. I wanted him to be mine. But he's not. He's not my Noah.
No one else could ever be my Noah. My special boy.
I would give anything to have my baby back. To look into his eyes, and see the whole of my universe suspended there. To hear his stories, told in his own unique voice. To feel the solid weight of him in my arms. To watch him grow. It is a fool's dream. I know that nothing I could ever give would suffice. I understand that I am helpless and -- unexpectedly, mysteriously -- my helplessness doesn't make me angry anymore. Every day, I forgive myself a little more for being unable to save him. The self-hatred that had hardened like a lump of obsidian in my ribcage is slowly chipping away.
I don't know about tomorrow, or the day after that, but this is where I am right now. Right now I can say, with a delicate confidence: It is so. It is sad. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It is long. It is the most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with -- and I have dealt with a lot. I am a champion. I am a mother. I am afraid. I hurt. I lose. I win.
It is simple. It is hard. It is so... it is so... it is so.
Where are you? Join up on Still Life with Circles.
Ah, my son. My son.
There is a certain little boy who frequently visits the store where I work, with his mother and grandmother. He is roughly the same age as Noah would be, had he lived. He is also the same color: coffee with cream. Delicious. Gorgeous. Just what I always wanted. A year ago, looking at him made my chest cave in. (One day I literally had to hide, crouching behind my cash register, choking on dry sobs.)
He's toddling now. I saw him last week, holding on to his mama's finger and grinning like crazy over his latest accomplishment. I wanted to scoop him up and kiss him all over his sweet face. I wanted him to be mine. But he's not. He's not my Noah.
No one else could ever be my Noah. My special boy.
I would give anything to have my baby back. To look into his eyes, and see the whole of my universe suspended there. To hear his stories, told in his own unique voice. To feel the solid weight of him in my arms. To watch him grow. It is a fool's dream. I know that nothing I could ever give would suffice. I understand that I am helpless and -- unexpectedly, mysteriously -- my helplessness doesn't make me angry anymore. Every day, I forgive myself a little more for being unable to save him. The self-hatred that had hardened like a lump of obsidian in my ribcage is slowly chipping away.
I don't know about tomorrow, or the day after that, but this is where I am right now. Right now I can say, with a delicate confidence: It is so. It is sad. It is beautiful. It is terrible. It is long. It is the most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with -- and I have dealt with a lot. I am a champion. I am a mother. I am afraid. I hurt. I lose. I win.
It is simple. It is hard. It is so... it is so... it is so.
Where are you? Join up on Still Life with Circles.
May 27, 2011
right where I am [part 1]
Lissie: 3 yrs, 11 mos
I'm almost to her day, Lissie's Day, again. I've been thinking about her a lot, but I haven't been that sad. Not yet anyway. There are other things, occupying my attention right now; happier things, more urgent things. And I don't feel guilty about this, as I would have once. I recognize that I need to embrace happiness when I can.
My grief has changed, recently, as grief does. I've moved away now, for good, from the "this can't actually have happened" phase: the phase where I keep expecting that maybe, just maybe, there not only really is an alternate universe where my children didn't die, but that one day I might wake up in it. Sucks to be you, version of myself that I switched with! Ha!
Yeah. Probably not going to happen.
I guess you would call it acceptance. My baby died. She doesn't need me anymore. She's not coming back. No matter how much I cry, no matter how much love for her I hold in my heart, no matter how many times I say her name... she's not coming back to me.
But she was here, for a little while. She was here, right here inside of me, as close as one person can be to another. She was here and I got to know her, even if it was just a teeny tiny bit, just the smallest sliver of knowledge. I got to be connected, however tenuously, to a bright-burning spark of life and glory. I got to give her a name. That was my privilege, my honor. And it's a beautiful name, for a beautiful girl -- a girl who simply couldn't stay. A girl I have to continually learn to let go of.
Her story is permanently intertwined with mine. She'll not be forgotten; I don't worry about that. Being dead does not make her more important to me than if she had lived, and if she had lived she would not be more important to me than she is now, dead. She's my daughter, I loved her, I love her still. The memory of her is tied to me like a balloon tied to my wrist. I don't need to grasp at it; I already know it's there. It moves when I move. We are connected.
Even if I let go, we are still connected.
Join this conversation on Still Life with Circles.
I'm almost to her day, Lissie's Day, again. I've been thinking about her a lot, but I haven't been that sad. Not yet anyway. There are other things, occupying my attention right now; happier things, more urgent things. And I don't feel guilty about this, as I would have once. I recognize that I need to embrace happiness when I can.
My grief has changed, recently, as grief does. I've moved away now, for good, from the "this can't actually have happened" phase: the phase where I keep expecting that maybe, just maybe, there not only really is an alternate universe where my children didn't die, but that one day I might wake up in it. Sucks to be you, version of myself that I switched with! Ha!
Yeah. Probably not going to happen.
I guess you would call it acceptance. My baby died. She doesn't need me anymore. She's not coming back. No matter how much I cry, no matter how much love for her I hold in my heart, no matter how many times I say her name... she's not coming back to me.
But she was here, for a little while. She was here, right here inside of me, as close as one person can be to another. She was here and I got to know her, even if it was just a teeny tiny bit, just the smallest sliver of knowledge. I got to be connected, however tenuously, to a bright-burning spark of life and glory. I got to give her a name. That was my privilege, my honor. And it's a beautiful name, for a beautiful girl -- a girl who simply couldn't stay. A girl I have to continually learn to let go of.
Her story is permanently intertwined with mine. She'll not be forgotten; I don't worry about that. Being dead does not make her more important to me than if she had lived, and if she had lived she would not be more important to me than she is now, dead. She's my daughter, I loved her, I love her still. The memory of her is tied to me like a balloon tied to my wrist. I don't need to grasp at it; I already know it's there. It moves when I move. We are connected.
Even if I let go, we are still connected.
Join this conversation on Still Life with Circles.
November 29, 2010
baby-daddy
It's not that I miss him tonight, exactly... But I miss having a lover, a partner, a champion; a friend. And I wonder when I will ever have that again, and with whom.
It seems the cruelest kind of irony that the very event that severed our connection permanently is the same one that ensured we would be bound to one another forever.
----------
You would have loved your daddy, No-No. I am sure of that much, at least. And I think he would have loved you more than he ever even knew he could. Certainly more than he loved me; but I'm okay with that. Perhaps he does love you, still; perhaps he remembers you, thinks about you, even now. I wish I knew.
I wish I didn't feel so alone in missing you.
It seems the cruelest kind of irony that the very event that severed our connection permanently is the same one that ensured we would be bound to one another forever.
----------
You would have loved your daddy, No-No. I am sure of that much, at least. And I think he would have loved you more than he ever even knew he could. Certainly more than he loved me; but I'm okay with that. Perhaps he does love you, still; perhaps he remembers you, thinks about you, even now. I wish I knew.
I wish I didn't feel so alone in missing you.
October 15, 2010
inexpressible
I wanted to put a quote here. A poem, a song. Something. I've been searching and searching. But nothing is working. And I find I am trying to describe something that I'm not sure can even be described in someone else's words, or maybe in any words at all:
I am trying to tell you what you mean to me
What it means that you were here
What it means that I'm your mother -- your mother
Not someone else's
Not anyone else's but yours
----------
What I picture in my mind, as I'm thinking about this, is the ocean, the wild breakers of the South Pacific ocean, at night. And I see so many stars overhead, unfamiliar, and very bright, the moon a shining silver splinter, and the waves foaming right at my feet, washing beguilingly over my toes, and then sliding away again. The air is warm, and the water is cold, and I stand there for a long time, with my head back and my arms outstretched, as if I could embrace the whole world, or gather the essence of you back together between the palms of my two reaching hands, gather you back from where you have disappeared into the heart of the universe. I can feel the whole of the earth missing you with me. Wondering with me, where have you gone, where are you now? Every rock and tree and flower, all the sand beneath my feet, all the whales, and the lions, and the mice, and the bees. We notice, we remember, we pause.
We look up.
And this string of moments is like a string of perfect pearls, or like a string of notes in a perfect melody, our solemn, silent song of acknowledgement, and memory... for you are a part of this story, this poem, this Place. You are part of us, and it -- and me. And we remember you.
----------
So this is it, baby. This is it.
If I had a picture of what I'm trying to say, this would be it.
I am trying to tell you what you mean to me
What it means that you were here
What it means that I'm your mother -- your mother
Not someone else's
Not anyone else's but yours
----------
What I picture in my mind, as I'm thinking about this, is the ocean, the wild breakers of the South Pacific ocean, at night. And I see so many stars overhead, unfamiliar, and very bright, the moon a shining silver splinter, and the waves foaming right at my feet, washing beguilingly over my toes, and then sliding away again. The air is warm, and the water is cold, and I stand there for a long time, with my head back and my arms outstretched, as if I could embrace the whole world, or gather the essence of you back together between the palms of my two reaching hands, gather you back from where you have disappeared into the heart of the universe. I can feel the whole of the earth missing you with me. Wondering with me, where have you gone, where are you now? Every rock and tree and flower, all the sand beneath my feet, all the whales, and the lions, and the mice, and the bees. We notice, we remember, we pause.
We look up.
And this string of moments is like a string of perfect pearls, or like a string of notes in a perfect melody, our solemn, silent song of acknowledgement, and memory... for you are a part of this story, this poem, this Place. You are part of us, and it -- and me. And we remember you.
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So this is it, baby. This is it.
If I had a picture of what I'm trying to say, this would be it.
October 11, 2010
bereaved, bereft, deprived
Main Entry: bereave
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: deprive
Synonyms: dispossess, divest, leave, oust, rob, sadden, strip
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Main Entry: bereft
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: lacking; missing
Synonyms: beggared, bereaved, cut off, deprived, destitute, devoid, dispossessed, divested, fleeced, impoverished, left without, minus, naked, parted from, robbed, shorn, stripped, wanting, without
Antonyms: full, happy
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Main Entry: deprive
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: keep or take away something wanted, needed
Synonyms: bankrupt, bare, bereave, denude, despoil, disinherit, dismantle, dispossess, disrobe, divest, dock, expropriate, hold back, lose, oust, rob, seize, skim, stiff, strip, wrest
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: deprive
Synonyms: dispossess, divest, leave, oust, rob, sadden, strip
----------
Main Entry: bereft
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: lacking; missing
Synonyms: beggared, bereaved, cut off, deprived, destitute, devoid, dispossessed, divested, fleeced, impoverished, left without, minus, naked, parted from, robbed, shorn, stripped, wanting, without
Antonyms: full, happy
----------
Main Entry: deprive
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: keep or take away something wanted, needed
Synonyms: bankrupt, bare, bereave, denude, despoil, disinherit, dismantle, dispossess, disrobe, divest, dock, expropriate, hold back, lose, oust, rob, seize, skim, stiff, strip, wrest
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