She rises up from ashes. Somehow fertilized by loss, resilience shapes her form.
Spring, Mother Mary, you & I.
Last night I was thinking about how the Blessed Mother's womb must have ached, her child unalive & powerful people celebrating some sort of victory.
This morning I realized that her sadness would not have ceased just because her baby returned.
She still felt the loss.
It wasn't erased from memory nor cell.
She would be, forevermore, a wounded healer.
Perhaps, Mary even walked with a limp thereafter.
What do you think?
I’m stopping in today at the intersection of Easter and ordinary days because some of us need a different kind of message.
One that says, this:
Goodness does not replace loss.
Because (real talk), even if loss doesn't have the final say, something has shifted. Maybe it doesn't always feel safe to love in the same way you once did. To experience goodness and gladness and God and joy. If you sit in the trenches with yourself or your earth siblings every so often, you'll see this happen over and over again. Death wears on us. And, we remember her.
Death reshapes life.
All kinds of death.
From the death of our loved ones to the death of our identities.
Woman to mother.
Child to adult.
Single to married.
Married to widow.
Mother to bereaved.
Able to disabled.
And everything between.
I think that if we want to we can access a deeper life after loss too, of course.
Which leads me to one last thought on identities as Trans Day of Visibility meets Easter this year; all the Christian faith traditions speak of rising up.
We might rise up from ashes and yet the past, with all her little and big deaths, still counts. There are stories that want to be heard, digested, integrated, and maybe even released.
I personally hold (lightly when I can) onto my past because it reminds me of my strength.
I'll end here…
Today and always, remember your capacity to hold both.
Life and death. The truth is grief can co-exist with what is beautiful, holy and good, loves.
Always.
And you have a say on what you do with this. You get a choice.
As always, I’m here to chat about the way love and anything else these conversations bring up for you in your caregiving body, mind, soul, life. Feel free to reach out.
See you soon, soul friend.
In loving memory of Reba.
New here? Dear Soul Tender is a safe, sacred space where you can find conversations and contemplations for those who mother, give (care) and grieve. Companioning you through complicated spaces including pain trauma, and loss, my promise here is to remind you of how to love well. Yourself, your kids, your neighbor, and the whole wide world.
All of this...yes! Thank you.
This is beautiful, Jennifer! I feel these words…