Can you see me here? Can you see me? Can you gaze at the reflection of death and loss without losing your head? I have had no choice. I have had to continue to move, and writhe, even as other people are frozen by the horror of this life, this particular life.
Read MoreFrom afar, and recently, on my trip to India, in person, my Hindu family, friends, neighbors, well-wishers from every sphere of my past, have been swearing on the karmic cycle, the soul, the wheel. Many of them have referred to Raahi as a “liberated soul,” one who has attained moksha or nirvana. I am grateful. It should be enough. The compassion, a heavy sigh, wordlessness. But few people stop at that.
Read MoreI let her, in a square white box, go become her absence. I let her breath go, the light from her eyes go. I let her tiny body go cold, stiff, bitter. I let seasons, lives, this earth, go on without her.
Read MoreThey held hands and promised to meet again to stare at nothing—to share their experiences, stories and memories. In time, their circle grew. Other women joined them, and they built a fire on colder days. None of them had asked to be in this tribe, but they were.
Read MoreMy friend shifted his weight and looked around the room. “Oh gosh, okay, wow. I’m so sorry. Oh, man. Yikes.” For days I thought about the exchange, and how badly I yearned to speak from the vantage point of a mother with a live child. No one had ever innocently asked me about my baby. Until I told this friend that Cora died, the dialogue was unfolding the way a typical one with a new mother should. It felt weird, wrong, wonderfully make-believe.
Read MoreWe’re stuck in between. In between worlds and in between words. And while our friends live in their whole worlds and speak in their whole languages, and we take part and play along, our fragmented lives and fractured words cannot fit or reflect perfectly.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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