The last two weeks have been heavy ones for Josh and I. We were overjoyed to be expecting another little one in the late spring, but on August 12th our tiny Ruadhán went to be with Jesus. Some of you have little ones who have gone before you into the presence of the Lord and you know what it is to hold both the joy of their lives and the grief of losing them in your heart. You know the fear driven, paradoxical aversion to the idea of ever opening yourself up to nurturing another life. You know the confusion over the seemingly illogical experience of intense grief over the loss of someone you have known for less than two months.
I wrote about these things because writing is the only way I really know how to process powerful emotions. I'm sharing it because knowing that several women who I trust and look up to have been through these things has been a strength to my soul and we need to know that we aren't alone. We need to encourage each other in sorrow to keep "clinging to the Keeper of life and awaiting the Resurrection."
Awaiting the Resurrection
O Barren Wasteland of Flesh -
freckled with mirages of fertility,
mocking my expectant heart.
O Hungry-eyed Darkness within me -
feigning hospitality
but serving Death:
I sit at your borders
like Jonah under the shade of his vine,
biting my lip against the curses welling up within.
For you betrayed me when I trusted you!
The innocent, defenseless seed of our passion
- my Lover and I - we nestled with muscly hopes
into the moist darkness of your soil.
Alas!
Though life welled up within the seed
and sinewy buds burst forth,
and roots took hold -
mining for strength for its becoming,
Your scarred and rocky depths remained
unmoved
unbending
Giving up only the unavoidable crumbs of vitality
which are indigenous to your insidious deception.
There!
I have spilt my chemical fury on you
O Faultless Womb!
These have been my (thinly veiled)
complaints against the Keeper of Life
It is within Him (not you!)
that we had so joyfully burrowed our hopes.
But it is treason to thrash against the Hand
who set the boundaries of your days and weeks
Our dear, dear Ruadhán!
And it is Time, not Death,
on whose chest I unleash
the pounding fists of my rabid grief.
For I drank deeply of your presence
Sweet Little One -
Through every vibrant day
of your single season.
But, drunk with the new wine of your life,
I woke
to find your vine withered.
Staggering towards the empty cup
your presence had filled to overflowing
in the weeks before,
My stumbling stupor
betrayed the selfishness of my love.
I clutch my pounding head,
conscious - above all - of my own withdrawal pangs,
Frantic with wide eyed disbelief
that I would never taste of your life again.
Heaving hot, angry sobs
against the impenetrable void of possibilities
which the flavors of your life could have ripened into,
I sink into my Lovers arms -
gratefully conscious of the bonds by which he and I are fused
into a oneness only Eternity’s scalpel can disentwine.
He, my fellow gardener, sits with me
- numb and angry in turns.
He is, however, bolstered by a patience of faith
I seem unable to find within myself in this moment.
So he wraps his around us both
as I - once the eager gardener -
Strain to pile up all the hopes and means for nurturing future life
upon the funeral pyre -
Satisfied to watch them turn to ash
and to plant only yew trees
in the self centered soil of my soul.
But My Beloved turns His eyes on me
- gentle, long-seeing eyes -
in whose depths gleam the hope of the Resurrection,
where Time and Death are conquered
and all is made new.
He speaks no words.
Words are not strong enough to bear the weight
of this sorrow
and this hope
and this fear.
So we sit together a while
at the Still Point.
And at the end of the day
I walk into the setting sun,
Down to the Lightening Tree
where my Beloved and I sealed our covenant
with ring and stone one cold winters day
There, in the naked earth,
where thick, red sap trickles perpetually
from the mighty limbs above
to sweeten the ground where the lilies grow,
I lay the tiny body down to rest.
nestled among layers of consecrated lace.
On the near edge of the Still Point,
Time moves on.
Our bodies and minds pick up hoe and watering can
to nurture the flowers still blooming and growing
in this given garden.
And in this liturgy of little obediences
we wait together quietly:
Too weak to till new soil
for future springtimes,
Too weak to hope
for future harvests,
But clinging to the Keeper of Life
and Awaiting the Resurrection.
