Tag: death of my daughter

On What Holds Its Breath

When I found an old folder filled with poems I had written years ago, I sat down and reread them with surprise . . . and recognition. I had forgotten how much I love the form of poetry, how it demands chiseling down to only what is necessary. A poem does not allow me to hide behind excess; it asks me to distill, to press thoughts and feelings into their most essential shape.

For years I’ve shared essays and reflections here, weaving stories into paragraphs. Now, I want to also let poems find their place among them. Poetry is another way of carrying the weight and wonder of life, grief, beauty, memory, love, in a form that breathes differently. It may arrive spare or lyrical, but it always asks the same thing prose does: to speak honestly, to hold what matters, and to offer it in words.

Not my image.

A field holds its breath
beneath a low veil of fog.
The grasses bend with dew,
each blade jeweled in silence,
waiting for the sun to rise high enough
to burn the mist away.

This is the hour between.
Not sky, not earth,
not gone, not yet held.
A place where sorrow lingers close,
dampening skin,
refusing to vanish.

Slowly I extend my hand into the vapor,
always hoping she’s reaching back.
Tender quiet is broken by the cry of a loon
from some unseen lake
whose edge I cannot name.

Soon the day will come,
the light will sharpen,
the dew will dry.
But for now,
I belong to the mist,
this tender veil
as thin as a breath,
between what was
and what remains.

The Old Moon Asked

When I woke up this morning . . . my heart was full of joy! There was no sadness present.

The smell of my daughter was still in the air when I hopped out of bed. Scents from her childhood hung heavy around me. Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. Applesauce. And, maple syrup. She loved pancakes. I truly expected her to be asleep in the other room.

Hadn’t I just put her to bed? Tucked safely under her Care Bear blanket? Her blond hair spread across the small Sesame Street pillow I’d bought her? I knew when I went into her room a wisp of her hair would be stuck to her cheek because we’d missed the syrup from last night’s dinner. I couldn’t wait to bury my face in the crook of her neck and just lay there until she woke from her dreams.

My eyes, still blurry from my own deep sleep, could see her bedroom door just across the room. For a moment I felt bad that her room was really a walk in closet because I couldn’t afford a bigger apartment. She’s so small, I thought, and we won’t be here forever. She’s safe. She’s with you. That’s all that matters.

Then the door to her room turned into a framed Matisse print on the wall. I wasn’t in the small apartment in Boston from 1986. It was 2018 and my daughter had been dead for eleven years.

We have dreams of our deceased child. Then there are times when we visit with our child. What I experienced last night was something completely different all together. I travelled in time . . . back to a moment when everything was alright.

In both the dreams of Becca, as well as the visits with her, I am acutely aware of the fact that she is dead. It’s a truth from which there is no escape. Until last night. There is no other answer that I can come up with other than I was able to access the past. I wasn’t burdened with the knowledge of her absence. I was light with the joy of her existence.

When I held her chubby little hand in mine I wasn’t preoccupied in trying to push her death away. I was a twenty one year old momma holding her three year old daughter’s sticky hand. Becca squealed with laughter as I put her palm on my mouth and made noises! She closed her eyes and whipped her head back and I listened to the music of her giggles. Pure delight for us both.

“Again!!” she said . . . over and over. So I did it . . . again and again.

When she got tired, I showered her face with kisses and my baby girl rested her head in the peaceful place on my shoulder. The day was quietly ending. As her breathing deepened and I felt her relax into my body I started to recite the poem she loved to hear every night before bed:

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night . . . sailed off in a wooden shoe . . . sailed on a river of crystal light and into a sea of dew . . . where are you going and what do you wish the old moon asked the three . . . we have come to fish the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea . . . nets of silver and gold have we . . . said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

This is the first time I have been able to get through that bit of verse without stopping after the first sentence because it was just too painful to finish. I’m crying.

And, I realize I am rocking back and forth. I need to rock my baby again.

Again.

And again.

 

Note: The verse I’ve included above was written by Eugene Field and was published on March 9, 1889. It’s original title was “Dutch Lullaby”. I read the poem to my daughter in it’s entirety hundreds of times. It’s quite lovely and I hope you take the time to read it.