truths
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that first,
I was a different kind of mother
and nothing about that is self-evident
Tidings of comfort
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Every day this month, I head into the cold and walk to the mailbox. For a moment I pause; preparing myself for what I’ll open and find. I tuck the small bundle of bright envelopes under my arm and run back inside, the tension within me building. The holiday cards have started arriving, and I feel emptier than usual.
Read MoreThe dead are not under the earth
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For the second year in a row, we move Joseph’s urn to the mantle, along with his birth announcement, and the photo of my pregnant belly days before he died (was dying even then?). But this, too, in its own way, feels empty. Why do I do this? I wonder. I do not believe that this night the veil between the worlds will open. I do not believe the dead will come back to visit us. I do not believe I will be reunited with my son.
Read MoreThe immortal daughter, the mortal daughter
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During the five days of festivities, the city never sleeps, and millions of people throng the streets all night, decked in their newly-bought finery. Friends and family return from all over the world, and in many homes, the festival also occasions their own daughter’s homecoming, from a city or country thousands of miles away. The festival is about new unions, reunions, of the coming together and being one again, of dispersed loved ones. There is space for all in these festive five days—from the deeply religious to the merely fun-loving.
Read MoreTo my first daughter, on Christmas morning
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This is a beautiful life, Lydie. It is a life where I have held you in my arms, if only for a few hours. It is a life that carries your name and your spirit. It is a life that holds unimaginable beauty in the warm smile of your brother, in the depths of your sister’s blue eyes, and from the immeasurable love for our Christmas baby.
Read Morea father's day dilemma
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I still recognize the unmistakable signs of another smile. It’s one that feels wider and more pronounced than before. While I don’t see it, I know it has a genetic familiarity reminiscent to that warm and pleasant smile that I was blessed to witness, so very alive in my memory. What will Father’s Day mean to you this year? Do you feel like Father’s Day is treated differently than Mother’s Day? What will you do to mark that day?
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