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My mother 'let go of the grass' last year, to quote Patricia Polacco. The circumstances surrounding her passing were troubling and tumultuous, but the saving grace was that I was able to keep vigil by her bedside, to say goodbye, and to show the other bereaved-to-be how to do so. Each moment was heavy with impending doom, the knowledge that at some moment close at hand, our mother, always so alive and so funny and so frustrating, was to be no more. The breath would leave her body, and the remaining statue of flesh would turn yellow and cease to be her, cease to hold that bright spirit that will ever shine within us.
And so it came to pass. And then the rifts, the rips and tears in relationships of blood and a shared past, deepened and solidified like drying cement, and will never be mended. Perhaps it was this, too, that I grieved afterwards.
I don't believe in guardian angels and I haven't ever been one to toss the word 'blessing' into a casual sentence, but in my utter desolation an old friend appeared, last seen over thirty years ago. She was there when I was friendless and alone; she paid her respects and left; but the vapor trails of her presence remained, and I was comforted.
That was last year. A year of profound pain, fear, sorrow. Darkness.
And then, this spring, on a trip to visit green grass and dandelions and baby goats and fat hens, I got a call. A mention of a 'pre-natal' exam. Something amazing to look forward to. So here it comes again, so here life comes again, to celebrate and lift up and enjoy. My son-in-law, teasing, asked where my tears of joy were. They are here, my dear, on the inside where you can't see them, but as wet and salty as real ones.
A new life creates new ties that bind. A new life makes us people we'd never thought we'd be: stronger, wiser, sweeter, better, more open to the world, more aware of how much we share with others, more understanding of those who begat us.
A new life, to open our hearts and work miracles, including ones that cannot be seen. How can we not also call this a blessing?
