The Other Side of Sorrow

We all have our releases. Yours is cutting onions and spinning tires in an imaginary resort. Mine is spinning tires in the real world, on concrete paved just for my bicycle.

I was first out of the gate, ready to win. For one hour, I was not anybody’s mother. Anybody’s teacher. Anybody’s wife. Anybody’s (even the one who lost her baby) friend. I was just a cyclist, three words to my name: “On your left!!” shouted to the tops of the peaks. Ringing out over my music. Move out of my way because there are not enough miles, not enough breaths in my lungs, not enough songs on this playlist to pedal through this pain.

Only: Road, River, Range. That is all I wanted to see. That is all I wanted to pull into my soul this Sunday. Those blue Colorado skies, the perfectly paved path, the river that feeds us all, and the mountains that divide our continent. There is nothing in this world more beautiful than sweat trickling down a back, tight thigh muscles, clicking gears, and That View. I could live my whole life in that one hour, the numbness of nightmares disappearing with each and every mile.

Forget what she said on Friday. Or the horrible news that I might carry like a burden for three weeks and she will carry for a lifetime. Forget that I came home to discover my husband’s mother rests on her death bed and my little girls can’t quite wrap their minds around anything deeper than the five-house alley-walk to their friend’s house.

Forget it all for this one breath-stealing shout-out: Road, River, Range. Placed here for me, for all of us, to tackle with this perfect body someone gave me to live on this Earth.

The three R’s. Only a different lesson.

Pick Your Battles

September 6, 2014September 6, 2014 / lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

a day in the park
as autumn weather moves in
cold ices my veins

sisterly battles
between friendships and trees
which one should i climb?

criticism blast
before Middle Eastern meal
battle of parents

which one should i choose
the oak dropping its acorns
or drought-dying maple?

a day in the park
full battle gear, war ready
at least we can choose

Crush

September 5, 2014 / lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

You know that when a grown man has to step into the restroom to wipe away his tears, it is that bad.

There is no measurement for this. There is no set standard of tears or years. It is only you and the devastation, the loss that will forever consume your life.

And I gather up my girls. My sixth-grader grabs my hand to walk past my First Denver Apartment (age eleven–how life spins in circles) and I take her fingers between mine like it’s my first crush. Because she is my first crush. My first crush of motherhood.

I think about the time after she was born and I had nightmare after nightmare of going places with her and leaving her somewhere… In the car seat on top of the car. In the stroller at the mall. In the back seat. At school. How my mind couldn’t fully adjust to being one hundred percent responsible for myself and a Whole Other Human.

And I hate that your life for the next four months means that you won’t be coming to work. That you have his room all set in perfect Pooh beauty, and that he will not be sleeping in that crib, and you will not be sleeping at all. And that you won’t have the joy of first-mother nightmares, of eleven-year-old arguments, of nine-year-old know-it-all truths, of eight-year-old cuddlings on the couch.

I hate that you would have to endure this before even fully becoming a mother.

Because you were a mother the moment he was inside of you, and your mindset changed from teacher + wife to wife + mother. And I hate how fate has changed all of that, and that you will wallow in loss and count birthdays and wish and wish and wish until there are no more wishes to wish.

And I hate how I cannot say anything to you, because I cannot possibly begin to understand the loss. The recovery. The absence of recovery. The first-mother crush that is crushed…

I hate that you won’t have first-child nightmares. Or that you will, only… they will be so much worse than anything I can imagine. I hate that you have this on your plate to face for the rest of your life. That you have Tragedy to bear for the rest of your life. Because you don’t deserve it. Because you wanted to be something so many people take for granted. Because you were meant to be a mother.

Because you were a mother. You ARE a mother. From the moment he was inside of you, you had that crush. That first-child crush.

Love is love. And it will find its way back into your life. Love lives beyond that life-changing moment. It grows inside of you just as easily as that beautiful baby boy. And it never ends. It never disappears, no matter how many birthdays pass, how many sad regrets.

Love is love. Love… is love.