grief and me
07-26-04, 6:57 a.m.

Actors gotta act, players gotta play, writers gotta write! RIGHT.
This makes the first time I’ve put pen to paper two days in a row
in quite some time.

I am up shaking the blank from my brain. Gotta be at work at 8:30.

This IS a good thing Bekah-la. For Rory as well as for myself.
The resistance remains, but – I am stronger than that.

This is another measure of recovery. To me, the acknowledgments,
both of the continuing resistance and of my power to rise above
it are hallmarks of what initially engendered it. Which is to
say the grief.

Grief came to stay, with a mission:
See if you can make this mother die.
So we commenced our struggling,
Grief and me.
All the ways, every way, that wet and hurtful way
We began to forge a peace,
All the days, thousands of days,
We played tug of war with this mother’s vitality.
All the nights, thousands of nights,
We crawled around like parasites

Inside each other’s tissues…
Awesome, awful issues at play, continue to play.
Grief is not bitterness, grief is not pure pain…
It is more the living body of bereavement
Wherein all cruelty gathers together with
A smattering of wisdom, a hunger for love,
A turning of the head toward the past,
Where it didn’t used to be. The mother’s task:
Turn the head of grief toward tomorrow,
Carry it forward, nurture it into sorrow,

Suck its wisdom, soften it with
Celebrations, memories, sog it with tears,
Let it in, recognize: Grief came to stay, or to
Take the mother away to nowhere.
So, grow with grief. Befriend the monster,
Defend your love your memory
Your joy your vitality, until finally,
Grief cuddles with you comfortably,
Adjusts its sights to the new reality, emerges willingly
Beside you, in the light of recovery.

Baby I want to work this one but cannot do it right this second.

So many apt conceits. Last night I was thinking, “You can take
the mother away from the cemetery, but you cannot take the
bereavement out of the mother.”

And yet there are ways for the mother to live after all. And
Bekah-la it is the STONE truth and the most telling truth as
well: I thank you for showing me the way. I love you eternally
amen
XXXOOO
mom
- posted by barbara @ 7/26/2004 11:45:00 PM