a rainy Sunday
filled with empty prayers to god
that i can’t quite hear
imagine this life
wasted living for heaven
all to hide our grief
let grief live on earth
with our hands upon our hearts
bleeding to let go
the clouds broke evening
god did not exempt the rain
it flooded our souls
in the grand scheme, grin
because the pain of this day
buys future joy
after-death clean-out:
desk too big for any room
memories replayed
pictures old and new
as far back as pain will reach
childhood relived
my life: email eye
spying on my every move
wait for responses
girls spin through crying
once it was: feed me, change me
now? essay, read, bathe
single motherhood:
just one week, and not for me
(found him at nineteen)
rushed dinners, yelling
later: lawn, Where’s Waldo search
we’ll never find him
his day versus mine:
turmoil a different tune
loss and love, rebirth
how they bring me joy
after all the years and tears
how they bring me joy
mid-day, he flies home
all afternoon i cook hope
form: chicken divan
an old recipe
that i made for their visits
but i wrap up now
to console still-birth
and recall family presence
even when they’re gone
the youngest cries out
because she is daddy’s girl
his phone face is brave
girls devour hope
pile ice cream for dessert
before his mom dies
asleep beside him
she heard him calling her name
she could let go, rest
midnight he’ll be up
flying home faster in dreams
regret, remorse, grief
the only one there
as she brought in her last breath
his worst fear present
the youngest cries out
as his siblings fill the house
he’s a mama’s boy
without his mama
no brave phone face, only tears
life’s a rented dream
before dawn message
asks permission for my love
i’m awake, ready
my soul sister breaks
before the sun emerges
i’d give her my life
sleep is a present
unpresent in this week’s life
seven days of hell
he flies tomorrow
what if he doesn’t make it
in time for her death?
my girls play the wii
squealing with best friend’s pained joy
parents’ illness wins
and yet they smile
dress up in formal attire
perfect for their game
living life scares me
as i list all my boyfriends
kindergarten up
ask him to recall
if he searched for love like me
or found it at home
he cannot answer
too consumed by coming grief
losing his mother
they will play all night
and go vacation their dreams
never knowing loss
that is what i want
no search for school boyfriends
just love at home. LOVE.
longest week ever
ending with happy hour
tears still in ducts
It is probably best that you dissented. That Wii and dinner preparation were more important than this Sunday afternoon ride.
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.
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.
with these feet
you will pound it out
you will remember your childhood
your hand in his
you will run
run past the wind
as the moment
you last saw him
slides into your subconscious
and he becomes a part
of every step you take.
her words flow over my shoulders
in waves of icy discomfort.
i watch your accepting faces
swallow the saltiness of
the ocean that year after year
never lets loose its high tide.
but you are swimmers
and her words won’t drown you.
you will build rafts
and zip up your wet suits,
ready for the relentlessness
of the moon-over-shoulder tide.
i wish i learned to swim like you.
when i spit back her wave of words
to him (hours later), my breath escapes me,
stolen by the tide. my arms reach
for your rafts, your suits, your warmth
that the icy waters swallow as i drown.
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