Post Birthday Reflections
La Pietà di Michelangelo
There are layers of realness in losing a child
Right after it happened, I was the most lucid I would be.
Shock set in, and it protected me from the full impact.
Slowly, as time has gone by, and my soul has slowly come back into my body, the realness of it all begins to come into focus
It's a lot like that Michelangelo quote: “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
It’s like the truth of his departure is already there in the marble, there are just layers around my subtle body that need to be chiseled away before it lands in the deepest place within me.
I keep thinking I’ve hit that spot, and then a new layer of reality is revealed.
His birthday marked one such studio session.
Where it landed even more deeply that he is gone.
More layers of grief to wade through. A new level of swampiness. Energetic heaviness. Haze.
And I’m just here. Pendulating back and forth between trying to be productive, and reminding myself that I am a grieving mother. And all I can do is go slow. And stay with the pace of the moment.
Which, right now, is slow like molasses. And that has to be ok.
