For Thor - 8 - Interlude

There is a moment after something really explosive happens when there exists a perfect eerie silence and everything moves in slow motion. I can see the air particles floating and I can see the hair on the dog move with a breeze. I can hear my heart beat. The sound of my breath is loud in my ears.

I am bloodied, standing on weary legs, swaying. Your dad is here, too. We can't talk so well, right now, but that's okay. We are together. When the time is right, we will find the words to express what is in our hearts. We are the gritty survivors of this personal horror. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to be, but here, now, moving forward one excruciating step at a time.

I remember watching an old movie about the Bataan Death March. In moments like this, I feel a tiny kinship to those poor souls. They each walked their own horrible road, silently helping each other along. Never presuming to know the depth of the other's anguish, only that they were in it together.

Damn, I'm exhausted and want to sleep but there is no rest. Not the rest I crave, anyhow. The body is fine. It is my heart that is so tired. Sorrow pulls me into its own flow and I have no energy to struggle against that current. It is the work before me; to live this sorrow. It is a crucible in which I will burn until I am soft and resistless. Only then can I be forged anew.

Only then will I find you again, Thor, in the sacred place where the angels roam and where we are all connected…in that One Love.

A friend shared a poem with me recently that I've reread a few dozen times.

All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

~ John O'Donohue

Inexplicably, the world clicks back into motion, its usual hum and banter chatters around me. Normalcy calls. Dad gets up and goes to work. I make coffee and sort laundry. I make breakfast for your brothers. I pay a bill and wash the dishes. I move purely by muscle memory into these tasks I've done thousands upon thousands of times. The blood pumps in and out of my heart. Air is pushed in and out of my lungs. I listen to the world move around me and know that one day, I'll engage again, but not now.

I am heartened by Chaz and Xan, each day. I look forward to seeing their smiling faces and to feeding their hefty appetites. They are suffering, too, and need me. We talked one night about my expression of grief and how that can be scary in its rawness. What I hope they are seeing is that this is how much I love them, too. This depth of feeling is not reserved for you, only, Thor. Each of you has my whole heart. It's one of the miracles of being a mother. What I hope is that they know that feeling and expressing the deep emotion triggered by your death is natural, even if it does suck to the ultimate height of epic suckiness. I hope they know that it's alright to cry, and it's alright to laugh their asses off, too.

There is joy in the world and it is a soothing balm for these wounds. We're gonna go find us a big pot of joy and roll around in it for a while. We are going to go bowling, I think. And out to lunch. We'll see how that feels and take it from there.