I’m beginning to realize that my grief “handbook” is more of a grief “memoir,” so I decided what I needed to do was add some discussions about how to handle grief. Or, that is, in a less obnoxious “I know everything” way, how I handled grief, and am continuing to handle it.
For example, to return to my discussion of rituals, I am desperate for New Starts. I constantly wish to start over, and my To Do lists (of which I have many, all neatly organized under their type on a white board), are full of New Starts: blogs, for example, or cleaning, or writing agenda. All of these ideas help to lead to refreshing my life in some way, so that I feel new again. I feel whole again.
But here’s the problem: I will never ever feel whole again. My mother is gone. I am now a motherless child, and despite all of the surrogate mothers I have out there–the aunts and moms by proxy and even, the never-met birth mother–I don’t have my mom.
A mom is different than a mother, isn’t she? My mother had cool hands, as in temperature, not jazz-related. When I would become ill, she would put those hands on my forehead and I would be comforted. I always overheated, even as a child, even now. I can’t snuggle while I sleep, and I always throw off my blankets. As a baby, I couldn’t be swaddled, not even held when I slept. So when I, in my fever, cried out, my mother placed those cool, cool hands on my head, and I was comforted, if not healed.
This is a poem I wrote several, several years ago for my mother and her cool hands. I’ll share it with you now:
Una Cancion del Amor para una Mariposa
On Wednesday nights I
unzip my body and
lie in fields of lilies.
The white petals cover my face, forming a
veil not unlike my
mother’s hair. In my
fever she placed cold
hands on my forehead and
sang to me.
I became an angel,
silver lashes shielding the
benediction eyes which once
saved a child’s laughter.
My mother told me of a French peasant girl
who led armies to victory by
the age of 18–
yet I cannot even bring my
wings to fly across the ocean.
Instead, I stand on concrete, feet
rooted firmly on the ground.
I look up and
swim in blue crystalline waters.
I fall up and drown.
A yellow butterfly danced on my
fingertip once.
I wielded her like a sword
mariposa
mariposa
te amo mama
She sang to me.
I swore I heard her sing.
On Wednesday nights I
unzip my body and
wings sprout from my shoulders.
If a French peasant girl can
lead an army, then I
can be the heroine of my
mariposa
mariposa
madre
in disguise.
The Postmodern Bluestocking 