32/2021
How do I explain that I don’t care about hiding it anymore? What’s the point of that — so people can compliment me on my strength? Indeed, it may be true that I have had the capacity to withstand great force and/or pressure, but the other day I told the entire enrollment of writers at Rodney Crowell’s songwriting camp that I am a destroyed person. That’s the truth.
Grief doesn’t move linearly. Anyone who is intimate with the process knows that even years after a loss that left you gasping, you can be totally fine one day and not the next. Sometimes even decidedly not at all or in any way fine.
Thirty-five years they’ve been gone.
Thirty-five years of holes seen and unseen, without maternal touch in my life.
Nothing can replace the concern of a mama. There are places in a person that can only be soothed by the one who held and comforted the infant. There are things that only a mama can be trusted with.
Thirty-five years of the feeling of wanting her, only her, when I am sick. When I am lonesome. When I am homesick for a watery, whispery dream I never saw in real life.
Thirty-five years of the ones who were supposed to be watching out having to do it from another plane. I’ve rattled around this world mostly okay, but some days it seems their absence grows larger the older I get. Thirty-five years of birthdays, weddings, deaths, afternoon coffee and conversation, births — all stacked up now — into a wall of grief that some days I can almost touch from the center of the circle it makes around me. I have the urge to breathe hard and rub my sleeve on the glass to make a window. Let me at least see, if I cannot live outside of it.
Most times I’ve turned cerebral — looked under the rocks of what I know or suspect for the real reasons for their tragic time together. I’ve looked for the whys and hows, I’ve looked for the beauty and goodness, I’ve celebrated them the best way I know how while still telling my version of the truth about them. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve done all of that because I couldn’t bear to admit the depth of my sorrow, I couldn’t show the extent of my primal longing, or that I needed to make it into words to try write it out? But I also know that if I weren’t in my head about it, I wouldn’t be able to write it at all. If I weren’t in my head about it, I’d only be able to howl.
Sending love everywhere today,
AM
Life is hard enough. What you endure and have endured additionally is so infuriating to me. I can only say how deeply sorry I am and will always be, how much I wish I could change it all for you and to thank you for sharing these very innermost raw emotions with such unflinching honesty. You are so loved by so many, but I’d rather you had your Mama than all of us. Sending love back, most sincerely. JB
Yes. There’s an old saying, “Joy shared is joy doubled. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved.” While the intent is good, there are days when I think it’s a bunch of crap. No one else can understand the sorrow, the pain, the longing that only you can feel for all that you have lost.
I can’t know your pain and you can’t know mine, but we can both be broken and it’s ok. Broken crayons still color.