We headed to the valley to finally lay to rest the babies gone too soon. Why have we held onto their deaths for so long? I wanted to keep them close. I was afraid of what kind of healing I might know in their burial.
The park ranger told us about a brook at the bottom of a gorge. So that’s where we headed. The slope was rocky and steep in places. We were descending with the dead. That felt like the easy part. The climbing back up, the leaving behind, the learning how to continue to live without them, that’s hard the part.
After some poems and prayers we opened their tiny urns. The boys were curious. One being a bit more adventurous than the other. Without fully realizing it, I went into hiding. I really did wanted to feel it all, feel it deep, and I missed it. I didn’t expect to find tiny bits of organ and bone. There was a moment when Rowen’s ashes were swept into and under the current. They floated away like a cloud under rolling glass. I want to remember this.
These babes were born too soon and have been gone for so long. This grief is old, worn, and familiar. It never goes away and I decided don’t want it to. Rhodes placed the bouquet of yellow Craspedia and red rowan berries I carried and we watched them get ferried away. Shepherd ran down to the other side to watch before they rushed over the fall.
Rehearsing the stories of sorrow by turning my face toward them keeps the grief warm, and malleable. It can then become what it needs to: a balm for me, perhaps a balm for you, and for those who are left in the wake. This is what healing can look like. It is part of the sacred alchemy of elderhood.
With empty urns we began our ascent back to the car.
He was sad and said he wished humans had nine lives. We talked about what his brother and sister might have been like. Would they be good at making things, or math, or music? Would they run fast like him? A few weeks ago he told me he wished River and Rowen were still alive so he could have a big sister and brother.
Me too, Shep.
I didn’t tell him that if they were alive, he likely wouldn’t be. It’s peculiar how death brings life and even the life it produces laments its passing. It’s a beautiful thought, really. The seeds that died in River and Rowen sprouted so much resurrection life. Shepherd, Rhodes, David’s name that produces little resurrections with every performance, my thesis show, and all the sprouts of life in between and those yet to come. There is literally no end to the new life those tiny ones produced. This is overwhelming and I am thankful. Resurrection truly is astonishing when you open wide the doors and look for it in every nook and cranny. And then again, sometimes it comes up from behind and surprises you.
What a beautiful thought. Tiny resurrections of River and Rowan surround us as we wait to see them again face to face.