wild is the wind
photo by KevinGrahame
On the west coast of New Zealand overlooking the fierceness of the Tasman Sea, the trees growing in the rocky crags of the shoreline jut sideways. The branches on the sea side are barren, twisted. The force of the wind changes their structure, the way their nature demands to grow beaten into submission. The limbs bend permanently off to the side pointing towards the land. "Go this way," they point. "Go away from the brutal sea." They morph from the relentlessness of the coastal wind. Their shape is the shape of the wind. It is the shape of abuse. Sometimes when I think back on how captivating those trees were, how haunting, how few pictures I took of them, yet how often I think of them, sometimes I think that shape is the shape of love.
Let the wind blow through your heart, for wild is the wind.
All the love songs are written about Lucia. All the heartbreak songs. All the songs about loss and want and ache. All of the songs. I want to write about her too, but I can't seem to find the words. I know nothing about Lucy except that she isn't here. And the cadence of her not being here is like the wind beating on me, changing me. I relent. My branches bend over, growing uncomfortably sideways, damaged, impossible. I bend from the love. The love disguised as sadness and grief. Sometimes I get confused by that, thinking that I am bending from the hurt, but it is love that bends me, that points me away from everything else. I look debilitated. I feel debilitated. Until, suddenly, I realize that it has become so much a part of who I am, I am not uncomfortable anymore. And until it became so much a part of who I am, the way I was, unbending and sure of the world, makes no sense anymore.
You're Spring to me, all things to me.
I never thought I’d survive the death of one of my children. That is what I used to say when I would hear a horror story about stillbirth, or infant death. "Oh, I would never survive," I would muse. I thought I would turn into dust and ash and be carried off, a bit of me left everywhere until I was nowhere at all. I'd close my eyes to banish the thought of it. Cross myself. Throw salt over my left shoulder. Touch wood. Hold my breath. Make a wish. Knock on wood. Throw salt over my shoulder. Whisper on the wind.
Let me fly away with you.
Maybe I really thought I would never survive it, or that is simply all the further I could think of such a scenario. It seemed so horrid, I wouldn't dignify imagining how it would really be. Maybe I said things like that because I thought I was not the kind of person that babies die inside of. I remember that feeling of talking myself out of the anxiety of the stillness. I felt silly for being afraid. I felt silly. I used to think I was a humble person. Confident, perhaps, but humble. Humility, in fact, was my religion. That seemed the key to a spiritual existence. Humility and compassion. Hand in hand. Then I thought I was humble because I lost so much. Before that, I thought I was humble because I didn't think I was the prettiest, smartest or most talented person and that realization didn't floor me. My philosophy of life was simple: "I am not anyone special. And neither are you."
I suppose now I see humility differently. Humility to me is accepting that I am not capable of transcending my humanness. My child died in me not because I am bad, or good, or humble, or arrogant, or I deserved it or didn't deserve it. She died because I am human. I am not a terrible person, just a person. And I am changed by the grief. My branches own the hurt perhaps further are the hurt of simply being human and loving so much.
Wild is the wind. So wild.
Though I thought I'd never survive my child's death, I survived it. What did I think I would do? Kill myself? Expire from lack of wanting to survive? After living through the death of my child, I realized that surviving isn't the hard part. You can live despite yourself and in spite of yourself. You can punish, abuse, disengage with you, you can cut yourself off from everything. You can try to will life to stop, but it won't. You wake up everyday and remember what happened again. And your arms bend a little more.
It is the thriving that feels impossible. It is the hope that gets choked, the loneliness that settles onto your bones like an old wet wool coat, useless and bulky in its wetness, and uncomfortably heavy. It is the juxtaposition of the old, wet, wool coat, and the wind that blows through your heart. And the wind that blows through the holes in you. Your arms tire. Everything is tired. But you still live.
My love is like the wind.
There is a hole in me that seems bigger than any one person could have ever filled, especially someone so little and dead. The wind blows through her tree this morning, moving the tiny Buddhist bell and the flags that send a prayer off to the corner of the globe. That prayer can never be answered. And still I pray for the impossible--a moment with Lucia again. A moment. One tiny wisp of her. The grief that whirled in me after she died touched all the other grief in me. I can see that now. That is why I am defined by grief now, because we are all defined by grief. I am not special because of that. And neither are you.
I am more beautiful, though, because of Lucia. More beautiful because grief debilitated me until I grew into the shape of grief and into the shape of love. I am sideways and ugly and in that way, I suppose I am beautiful.
For we're creatures of the wind and wild is the wind.
What ways has grief shaped you? What parts of you feel leafless and empty? What parts of you are heartier? What ways have you grown more beautiful because of your grief? In what ways have you thrived? In what ways have you merely survived?
19 Comments
Reader Comments (19)
http://www.spinner.com/2009/08/17/swell-season-in-these-arms-exclusive-download/
"Maybe I was born to hold you in these arms..."
It's about my children to me. That's not what it's supposed to be about, but that's what I hear. I remember who I used to be and I keep trying to figure out where I went...but I'm gone, and there's a grave outside with the ashes of two children in it. The other was cremated with medical waste...I'll never be able to bury that child, and it hurts. Somewhere, though, there's still this feeling that there has to be some reason for all this, some reason that I have to suffer and escape the suffering. But if there is some greater plan, I don't see it or understand it.
Grief has totally reshaped me. I am not even close to the person I once was - and that is not necessarily bad thing, it just is what it is. As for whether I'm more beautiful, I don't know. I really don't know. I feel more patient and understanding and willing to lend a shoulder to those who have lost and are suffering, but I also feel as if the grief has made me incredibly selfish and needy. I'm working on this on a daily basis.
Given it has "only" been three years, I still feel I am in survival mode. I lost a baby, I had another baby very shortly after, now I'm having another one again - I don't feel there has been much thriving on my part. Just day to day survival. I know to most other people, the non greivers out there, three years seems like a long time, but to me it has mostly been about putting one foot in front of the other and getting through this as best as I can. I hope one day I feel certain enough in myself to say I am thriving. Not yet though. But I am doing the best I can.
Honest, beautiful post - as always. You're a gift to this community. Never forget that.
Surviving: my marriage was/ is hanging on by a thread. We're working on it.
Has it made me more beautiful? It has made me more myself. I still feel leafless. Stripped of bark and branches. I'm just roots and dirt. I think that's what I was meant to be.
Thank you, Angie. Beautiful and thought-provoking x
In terms of thriving, I've been so caught up in survival for so long that it's hard to tell. I feel in many ways like a plant that's been pruned - there are new bits of growth starting to appear, but I'm not sure how well they'll do just yet.
My partner and I have been lingering on your blog (and emailing) for the past few days and we are damn grateful for this space too.
I really fucking hope we can thrive again, even if I can't even imagine what thriving After Margot will look like.
You're writing is beautiful and your words are sacred. I hold them in my heart.
Josh
I feel like I spend most of my time surviving and nothing but, but the truth is that I sometimes feel that way for reasons other than grief. So, specific to what you're asking-
Chip's death got me to leave a work situation I hated but would have endured for years and moved me to a better one. Kai, Chip, and infertility have moved me past my shyness and reticence to allow me to be an open heart and a waiting hug for others in need. I am falling more and more in love with my husband, even as we struggle.
But leafless and empty is how I think of our home- as a couple we may have roots, but without children, there are no leaves. We are not a family.
Your words motivated me to share. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
"Sweat Lodge Living"
Water on the stones.
Levels on levels we feel the harsh-hot intake.
Can you take?
Don't know.
The stones so hot.
The lessons so hot.
Where do I burn?
Where do I learn?
Water on the stones.
More, more, more.
Ah, Spirit come and breath that voice.
Spirit where are you?
I burn.
I learn.
The pressure is crushing, there is no room. No air. I want to escape.
This tent--this breath--this massive intake.
The darkness boasts for inner look. I am scared, what will I find? Those stones be burning from the beginning of time.
Is there a drum or is it my heart? I am about to explode from the quiet dark.
Then, the settle.
I accept.
I accept that this is my story on the griddle.
My
Mine.
It is the know.
Sweat lodge Life
Live
Long, it hurts but that's what it takes to spirit grow.
"Maybe I said things like that because I thought I was not the kind of person that babies die inside of."
Exactly.
After losing my daughter, mum and sister grief has morphed me into a completely different person...a better more compassionate one.
I can't change what happened to me, especially losing our precious 4 year old, but I do make a difference now as to how I view the world. Little things mean more and money now is only a means to an end.
Friends and family are my survival tools and blogs like yours! :) Which let me know I'm not alone in my sadness and grief some days.
Thank you for making me think today, about the grief and how it does change you...I can't go back but I can choose to live life with gratitude for every single day I am blessed with. I'm also a paranoid mum now! :)
with love
Diana Doyle
Anonymous--I don't see the plan either, but I understand the need to search for one.
Sally--what you wrote got me "Only three years". I forget that sometimes. I talked to a woman recently who lost her five year old thirty years earlier. She called me a grief baby. I really needed to hear that, because I feel like I have been grieving forever. Sometimes I think my arrogance make me think survival mode is really thrivival mode or something.
Jess--It definitely has made me more myself. I'm not always sure that is a good thing, but it did help me realize how unsure I was of who I was. Now, sometimes the most authentic thing I can do is admit I have no idea what to do and who I am.
Brooke--yes, there is a time when, as my friend Kara (Mother Henna) says, "The most creative thing we can do is figure out how to get out of bed in the morning." For me, the next part, when the numbness wears off, and the automatic functioning of the body returns, that was the hard part for me. I just wanted to concentrate on existing again. My love to you.
Josh--I am so grateful to connect with you and Kari and learn about your beautiful daughters. I'm also glad you found this place.
Beautiful words, Emmy Graham. "I accept that this is my story on the griddle." That is an amazing image, that we pour our story out and then suck in back in our pores, or that it sits on us.
Krista--I am just so sorry to read about Cypress and the old grandfather tree. The image of them together is heartbreaking and beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Mirne--I will be thinking about what you wrote here for a long time. Hope gone. It is a haunting and important thing to think about.
Diana--I am so sorry for your losses--your daughter, sister and mum. It is all so cruel. The gratitude you express in the wake of that is powerful and inspiring. I can touch that every day, but still struggle to sit in gratitude for long periods. It is my goal, though, to embody that attitude of gratitude. One day, perhaps.
Maybe it's just I wish it were fiction.
But I feel lucky to read it. And I don't want to take away from your daughter. But your words are so good.