Grief Teachers

We are a club, Doodle, Max and I. We turned 11 and lost our mothers. No one prepared me. “Don’t tell her, she’ll be sad.” Maybe I was sad already! Who would ever even know?

I had my mother for 11 years. Long enough to know her, but I didn’t know her, and I didn’t know how to miss her. My rabbits have taught me how to mourn a loss. They’ve been my grief teachers. Every time I enter the room, clean and empty and rabbit-less I cry, “I want my baby bunny back!” I see her everywhere. In the face of every flower, chewing my favorite robe, begging bites of apple. That trusting, precious innocence is priceless. My rabbits felt my devotion; a mother’s gift to her beloveds. My mother could not make Love tangible to me, and I turned my sorrow against myself. Later my rage, and then I quietly gave up on finding, feeling, keeping Love.

Don’t ever give up on Love. If your heart is shattered in a million pieces, it’s worth the extraordinary effort to rebuild and fortify (it’s tempting to withdraw in bitterness but how is that helpful or healing or productive?) Take all the splintered shards and form a marvelous mosaic. Let Love perform a miracle. Watch the pendulum swing unerringly into perfection.

LBM 6/2/2019