Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than you heart’s desire.
You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.
You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.
Finally, with courage in you heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.
~ Author Unknown (http://thespiritscience.net/2015/07/05/a-time-comes-in-your-life-when-you-finally-get-it-this-is-your-awakening/)
I don't own a t.v.-This means that sometimes I have to wait until my show is released on Netflix or Hulu in order to watch. Such is the case with this recent season of Scandal. The whole recent season I avoided my Facebook feed on Thursdays in order to avoid spoilers, patiently anticipating the day I'm June when alas, I too, would get to yell at the screen cursing Shonda. But this season- this season where the grief of a mother who has lost a child has been the heart of the plot- this season I do not scream- I ugly cry. In one episode, the grieving mother falls to the floor, crying in desperation, trying to get undressed. I could feel myself taken back to that place of desperation- wanting to take off my clothes, my skin, anything that felt constricting. After my friend Andre's funeral, when I got to my car, I took off my shirt, sobbing and not able to breathe. Right there in the parking lot- people walking by, I sat with no shirt and started to drive- at some point I put on a tshirt I found in the backseat. I cried with similar desperation many times after my baby died. Knees buckling from under me, unable to breathe, to think, to be anything but grief. I wailed at times, deep cries from a place so broken and deep within that it scared me to cry that way. I was often afraid that I would never stop crying. I still don't know if one ever does when it comes to these things or if it's even something to fear.
My internal grief clock which won't be ignored kicked in a couple of weeks ago. I found myself crying on and off without explanation. Why was I so sensitive, so sad? Then I remembered- that I got pregnant this week 3 years ago. And so there I was in the car on the way to a friend's house, and I remembered- and so I pulled over and I cried. I kept my clothes on this time- I no longer cry in desperate ways. My pain has transformed, it doesn't take the knees out from under me any more, it just exists.
A couple of months ago I attended this beautiful ceremony at a Buddhist temple specifically for perinatal loss. It was in this small but peaceful studio at a high rise in SOHO. We chanted and meditated and the Reverend leading the ceremony shared his story of loss. We all sat quietly, most of us crying and witnessing. We lit incense and said prayers and I found myself being incredibly grateful for moments entirely dedicated to honoring Mateo's life and acknowledging his death. We also made paper cranes. We sat around this table and a gentleman led us through the process of making these small delicate paper cranes. As we were starting our cranes, a woman walked in flustered, apologizing for being so late- saying "I really need this". A chair and a place around the table was found for her and she was handed a piece of paper. Here- write your child's name on this and we will make it into a crane that will be left at the altar- she was instructed. She wrote down a child's name. Then grabbed another piece of paper, and another. I need three cranes- she barely got out the words. Another woman cried with such fervor that every time I looked at her, I cried also. I cried with her and for her. She felt so raw to me and though she was there with a partner who held her hand, at times I wanted to walk over and console her- but what could I say that hasn't been said to me and proven not to comfort? I didn't want her to stop crying because it made me uncomfortable or even because it moved me to cry as well, I just didn't want her to be in so much pain, a pain I understood. But she was and is, as am I. These are our lives, and so we make sweet little paper cranes and write sweet little babies' names on them and cry together on beautiful Sunday mornings.We do it in ceremony and reverence, red faced, holding liquid filled tissues with no regard for keeping composed. And then we leave the sweet little cranes on an altar with many other sweet little cranes and bow upon leavin the sacred space thanking the universe for one more moment in life dedicated to that sweet little life once carried inside of us.
