As if sad stories aren’t hopeful. As if simple images don’t tell us everything. Above is a photograph taken today in Long Lake, MN on February 16. A fragile little sapling shielded by a dead leaf from season’s past. Out of place green strong enough to melt the surrounding crystallized snow….but only with help. The early, early coming of spring.
This has been an arduous beginning to 2017. I have been slowly and methodically recovering from a septic infection. I spent most of six weeks on a version of bed rest and am just now re-entering full days…barely and preferably with a short nap. The sensation of time slows down when one is healing; and yet somehow, the days pass quickly. Being expansive with non-busy time is both an art and a discipline. I have been listening to my favorite episodes of On Being with Krista Tippett. On one show, the famous poet/philosopher David Whyte says sympathetically, “This is another delusion we have – that we can take a sincere path in life without getting our heart broken.
The honest, almost optimistic, truth of this line came with me to my weekly yoga class. It was my sons’ birthday. Near the end of class, I thanked my sons – Paul for being the object of my undaunted affection for seventeen years and William who died at thirty-four weeks in utero for showing me how to love through unthinkable heartbreak. The birth of my two sons at thirty-seven and a half weeks – one living, one dead – was the waking moment of my life’s purpose. One month later I started writing my book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence and two months after that I formed my non-profit Mind Body Solutions. Life and death traveling beautifully through the same belly drove me to share my story and help others.
When we lost William, my now ex-wife Jennifer and I (but mostly Jennifer) planted a loosely Asian-styled garden in memorial to him. Stillborn children leave a strange imprint of loss. We watched a seemingly healthy son grow in Jennifer’s belly through multiple ultrasounds. (We had a lot of ultrasounds because our twin pregnancy was considered high risk.) We named him at twelve weeks and even gave him a nickname of Sweet William because he seemed a gentler presence than Paul in Jennifer’s belly. But then to not have him make it to the ‘outer’ world, to never touch his living body directly makes him a mystery, a raw encounter with love’s transcendence. He never leaves me because he was never ‘here.’
So here I am now, entering once again the stream of a busy life. The fearful snow of serious illness is melting away and my innocence is rekindling. I feel fragile and hopeful and a little anxious. Then comes this image of the sapling and the shielding leaf, a reminder of my sons, and the waking of my life’s purpose. Of course they are growing William’s garden, as he is whispering directly into my secret ear. He tells me that I am not alone, that both my sons walk with me on my path, that both my sons are teaching my heart to love.
As if sad stories are not hopeful and simple images don’t tell us everything…