I'm knitting a blanket for my daughter
it will be 9" x 7" x 4.5"
fitting snugly around her.
No, she is not a tiny little girl
out of a fairy tale
although her birth made my life so magical
and brought dreams back into my soul.
It's tiny 3-dimensional blanket
to cover the tiny golden box
that today holds her combusted remains.
Cremation
Maybe among them there might be residues
of previous cremations,
the pulverized cardboard,
the wrapping material around her body.
Are the bodies wrapped so the handlers
don't have to see their faces?
Combustion
It's all a transformation of matter with heat.
Some of her transformed cells
remained in the burning chamber
and will be mixed with other remains.
Some particles floated in the air
and mixed with the dust
that will be swiped away
when the janitor comes buy
during the normal cleaning routine
Some climbed through
the crematorium chimney,
as gases that were devoid of smell
and then released into the atmosphere
Most of it will remain
in this tiny golden box
that I'll wrap in this tiny blanket
knitted in her favorite color.
Was it the first favorite color?
Or the third...
I can't remember the order
of her favorites anymore.
She stopped telling me that
long before her death.
I think of the all these particles
if they are still parts of her, if they hold
anything of what made her
so unique and so loved.
Are they going to spread her beauty
and greatness everywhere they land?
Can souls be rubbed off into others?
What will be wrapped in this tiny blanket
is just a heavy transformed
incomplete portion
of what my daughter once was
mixed with other things
that weren't hers.
My beautiful, precious daughter.
She now cannot refuse my hugs.
I can cradle this little box
for as long as I want.
She stays still all the time
compliant to whatever rules
we impose upon her.
No more locked doors.
No more defiance.
Never late for school again.
never dragging us down.
No more drama.
No more stress.
No more pain.
No more tears in her eyes
No more broken hearts for her.
nothing,
no more!
never again,,,
Monday, January 29, 2018
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Crime scene investigation
She had lost her son twice. And twice she had been saved by her daughter.
First when he left, at 15, with his heart bitter with resentment that he never explained.
She cried everyday, all day long. Her husband, out of pity on her misery, suggested them to have a child.
The daughter born 9 months later saved her. It was a new beginning, her daughter was more than perfect. She was a dream fulfilled.
The second time she lost her son was when he died, at 25 suffocated in his desperation and hopelessness.
Her soul cried deep inside with an infinite sorrow. Again her daughter saved her, because if wasn't for her, she wouldn't continue alive.
Now, at 15, her daughter died. She didn't have enough tears to cry anymore. A furious rage started eating her entrails, poisoning her blood, crunching her heart: "I miss you so much that my heart aches to pump and my blood crawls slowly through my veins".
During the memorial mass, while the priest was explaining about Lazarus and how we are all going to assume a celestial body at the end of times, she could only stare at the box with her daughter's ashes. She remembered how heavy was her lifeless body when she found her and tried to revive her with CPR and now it was a light bunch of ashes in a box. She thought of all the atoms that made her daughter's body, all the fusions and collisions that had happened in billions of years in the forge of the stars that were now gone and that somehow got together to form such a beautiful girl that had brought so much happiness and hope to her in he short life. She reflected on how all these atoms were constantly changing, transforming, combining, reacting as her daughter grew. In how they were still being transformed, by the fire of the cremation, but they were all there in one way or another, still part of this universe. All that we are is a bunch of atoms combined, reacting and transforming one another. The dust of the stars. Maybe that's the celestial body mentioned by the ancient people. We are made of stardust and to the stars we return as dust.
This idea was at the same time tragic and wonderful, but neither that, nor the Lazarus story could bring her any comfort.
First when he left, at 15, with his heart bitter with resentment that he never explained.
She cried everyday, all day long. Her husband, out of pity on her misery, suggested them to have a child.
The daughter born 9 months later saved her. It was a new beginning, her daughter was more than perfect. She was a dream fulfilled.
The second time she lost her son was when he died, at 25 suffocated in his desperation and hopelessness.
Her soul cried deep inside with an infinite sorrow. Again her daughter saved her, because if wasn't for her, she wouldn't continue alive.
Now, at 15, her daughter died. She didn't have enough tears to cry anymore. A furious rage started eating her entrails, poisoning her blood, crunching her heart: "I miss you so much that my heart aches to pump and my blood crawls slowly through my veins".
During the memorial mass, while the priest was explaining about Lazarus and how we are all going to assume a celestial body at the end of times, she could only stare at the box with her daughter's ashes. She remembered how heavy was her lifeless body when she found her and tried to revive her with CPR and now it was a light bunch of ashes in a box. She thought of all the atoms that made her daughter's body, all the fusions and collisions that had happened in billions of years in the forge of the stars that were now gone and that somehow got together to form such a beautiful girl that had brought so much happiness and hope to her in he short life. She reflected on how all these atoms were constantly changing, transforming, combining, reacting as her daughter grew. In how they were still being transformed, by the fire of the cremation, but they were all there in one way or another, still part of this universe. All that we are is a bunch of atoms combined, reacting and transforming one another. The dust of the stars. Maybe that's the celestial body mentioned by the ancient people. We are made of stardust and to the stars we return as dust.
This idea was at the same time tragic and wonderful, but neither that, nor the Lazarus story could bring her any comfort.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
The unbearable weight of time
She heard ao much about "time heals all wounds" that she started another collection: Sayings about time and grief.
For her and several other grieving mothers, time was a load that she had to carry with heavy burden.
From Wikipedia:
"Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to it.
There are generally tests that can serve as a guide to what cruel and unusual punishment is according to various legal textbooks in accordance with the law. These are the 1) frequency at which the punishment occurs in society, 2) overall acceptance in society, 3) severity (i.e., the punishment fits the crime), 4) if the punishment is arbitrary"
The longer she had to survive her son's death the heaviest the load of the time. Grieving the loss of a child to suicide fits all the requirements of cruel and unusual punishment.
Now she lives in parallel timelines. One that is stuck on his last breath, another one that drags her around pretending to be alive.She published her collection of sayings about time and grieving using Amazon creative space and all the proceeds from it go to a lady that supports family and friends of suicides: Karyl Chastain Beal.
Here is the webpage of her support group: https://www.pos-ffos.com/
If you are curious about her collection, you can buy it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CLS5KWM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_37ktCbSFS1019
For her and several other grieving mothers, time was a load that she had to carry with heavy burden.
From Wikipedia:
"Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to it.
There are generally tests that can serve as a guide to what cruel and unusual punishment is according to various legal textbooks in accordance with the law. These are the 1) frequency at which the punishment occurs in society, 2) overall acceptance in society, 3) severity (i.e., the punishment fits the crime), 4) if the punishment is arbitrary"
The longer she had to survive her son's death the heaviest the load of the time. Grieving the loss of a child to suicide fits all the requirements of cruel and unusual punishment.
Now she lives in parallel timelines. One that is stuck on his last breath, another one that drags her around pretending to be alive.She published her collection of sayings about time and grieving using Amazon creative space and all the proceeds from it go to a lady that supports family and friends of suicides: Karyl Chastain Beal.
Here is the webpage of her support group: https://www.pos-ffos.com/
If you are curious about her collection, you can buy it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CLS5KWM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_37ktCbSFS1019
Monday, December 18, 2017
It was never about where it ends...
but how we get there.
That's what she thought on her first day of vacation.
Everyone seems to know that, based on all the motivational porn that circulates the net.
But no one is willing to take the plunge. The only certainty we have in life, since the day we are born, that one day we will die, and yet, it's the one thing that most of us refuse to get ready for.
Death should be our friend, she thought. She pushed her brain:"think, think!" The very idea of friendship makes as much sense as happiness, love, hate. They are not part of nature. They are abstract constructs that we use to fool ourselves and distract us on the way there.
We shouldn't care about death. Or care just as much as you care about life. Because life is what happens between birth and death.
That's what she thought on her first day of vacation.
Everyone seems to know that, based on all the motivational porn that circulates the net.
But no one is willing to take the plunge. The only certainty we have in life, since the day we are born, that one day we will die, and yet, it's the one thing that most of us refuse to get ready for.
Death should be our friend, she thought. She pushed her brain:"think, think!" The very idea of friendship makes as much sense as happiness, love, hate. They are not part of nature. They are abstract constructs that we use to fool ourselves and distract us on the way there.
We shouldn't care about death. Or care just as much as you care about life. Because life is what happens between birth and death.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Dead oak trees
She walks slowly through the streets of her neighborhood, stepping on dry leaves that cover the yards with no respect for the brown grass underneath.
Trees raising their desperate naked limbs to sky, crying for old oak trees that were put down, their remains blocking the sidewalk.
The oak trees were dead, was she told. What do they know about the ones that are still standing after death? No one can tell of the pain of the oak tree to keep itself standing way past its time, when there was no reason to remain. She knows about that.
The oak trees put down. They say that as if trees were like terminally will pets, that are put down "to be freed from their misery". Why do we humans want to give this type of lethal freedom to animals and trees?
Why can't we free ourselves from misery? What kind of freedom is that that we distribute effusively to some, to the silenced, to the defenseless, the ones that insist in stand even after death?
She embraces the large chunk of trunk still exuding the memory of the saw. She tries to measure how has to be one's misery so they have to remove the being from one's misery? Why remove the being from the misery, if the misery is what remains?
Her friend was in misery. Unbearable pain, no hope, no dreams, being haunted by his past. Had he suffered from a headache, any doctor would do everything to "remove him of his misery" with medications, treatment, follow-ups. We learned to measure pain in a scale from 1 to 10. from the :-) to :-( and we can price the pills that take this pain away. Physical pain is smashed into pieces on the side of the road blocking her walk.
Actual misery cannot be measured. She calls the police for help. She describes the depth of her friend's misery. She gives them his name, address, phone number. She tells them how she find out that he was still alive, but all they want to know is his race. Maybe that's the way to measure human misery, by gradients of skin color. She pauses wandering which shade will warranty him to be freed from his misery.
Trees raising their desperate naked limbs to sky, crying for old oak trees that were put down, their remains blocking the sidewalk.
The oak trees were dead, was she told. What do they know about the ones that are still standing after death? No one can tell of the pain of the oak tree to keep itself standing way past its time, when there was no reason to remain. She knows about that.
The oak trees put down. They say that as if trees were like terminally will pets, that are put down "to be freed from their misery". Why do we humans want to give this type of lethal freedom to animals and trees?
Why can't we free ourselves from misery? What kind of freedom is that that we distribute effusively to some, to the silenced, to the defenseless, the ones that insist in stand even after death?
She embraces the large chunk of trunk still exuding the memory of the saw. She tries to measure how has to be one's misery so they have to remove the being from one's misery? Why remove the being from the misery, if the misery is what remains?
Her friend was in misery. Unbearable pain, no hope, no dreams, being haunted by his past. Had he suffered from a headache, any doctor would do everything to "remove him of his misery" with medications, treatment, follow-ups. We learned to measure pain in a scale from 1 to 10. from the :-) to :-( and we can price the pills that take this pain away. Physical pain is smashed into pieces on the side of the road blocking her walk.
Actual misery cannot be measured. She calls the police for help. She describes the depth of her friend's misery. She gives them his name, address, phone number. She tells them how she find out that he was still alive, but all they want to know is his race. Maybe that's the way to measure human misery, by gradients of skin color. She pauses wandering which shade will warranty him to be freed from his misery.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Which family members do you wish you kept better in touch with?
She read the line of the behavior exercise: "Which family members do you wish you kept better in touch with?"
Lowering her eyes, she couldn't see the paper in front of her. They were staring at her past, at the very moment when she let her brain take the best of her heart.
Her son, her son... She wish she had kept him close by. If only she had return at the last day she saw him to give him one more hug. As if her tears touching his shoulder and face would have a magic touch to make his soul fly away from misery and follow her to a future of dreams that were never fulfilled. Dreams that now had no use. Not for her, not to anyone.
Lowering her eyes, she couldn't see the paper in front of her. They were staring at her past, at the very moment when she let her brain take the best of her heart.
Her son, her son... She wish she had kept him close by. If only she had return at the last day she saw him to give him one more hug. As if her tears touching his shoulder and face would have a magic touch to make his soul fly away from misery and follow her to a future of dreams that were never fulfilled. Dreams that now had no use. Not for her, not to anyone.
Now it's my turn to die
When one suffers from chronic depression, as the years go by, it comes contagious. Depression spreads to the ones around you, specially the ones that love you. Those are the most vulnerable.
The longer you struggle with depression, the more comfortable you feel with it, like the foot binding bandages that Chinese women used to prevent their feet from growing. As life grows inside of you, the cast of depression tightens around your soul and your spirit is forever deformed. You are afraid of removing the bandages, because you can smell the gangrenous soul inside of it. It will be painful and probably unrecoverable.
That was how she felt in her family. All of them growing apart from each other and away from the world, the sect of misery that feeds from the darkness of depression.
The longer you struggle with depression, the more comfortable you feel with it, like the foot binding bandages that Chinese women used to prevent their feet from growing. As life grows inside of you, the cast of depression tightens around your soul and your spirit is forever deformed. You are afraid of removing the bandages, because you can smell the gangrenous soul inside of it. It will be painful and probably unrecoverable.
That was how she felt in her family. All of them growing apart from each other and away from the world, the sect of misery that feeds from the darkness of depression.
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