We are a narrative species. When Joseph was died and born, we were conscious of his narrative. The way we shaped it, intentionally and not. We were afraid that Joseph would become his story. That, in the telling, he would be reduced to a tidy, practiced recitation safe for mass consumption.
Read MoreI want to cry over these real and fictional deaths but I’m afraid that if I start, I’ll never stop. Where a few months ago I felt Joseph’s death had given me a greater capacity to handle the sorrows of others, now I don’t want to hear about them.
Read MoreShe shakes her head slowly. “I thought about you,” she goes on, in her thick accent that leaves off the final English consonants. “Because the same thing happened to me. I had a son who died.” She begins to tell me her story.
Read MoreWe chose your name, Joseph. Never thinking that anyone would utter it again. Never thinking anyone would speak of you, remember you. We didn’t know your death was not the end. We didn’t know your name should be whispered, written, shouted, sung.
Read MoreDecember has opened a fresh well of grief.
Here,
broad and deep.
In physics we learned about billiard balls. How to gauge the angle, line up the shot. How when one ball hits the other, the energy is transferred. In an instant, the cue ball stops and the other ball is propelled… forward, sideways, at a slant.
Read MoreBereaved parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion, and the other side of getting through this mess called grief.
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Parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds: come here to share the technicolour, the vividness, the despair, the heart-broken-open, the compassion we learn for others, having been through this mess — and see it reflected back at you, acknowledged and understood.
Thanks to photographer Xin Li and to artist Stephanie Sicore for their respective illustrations and photos.
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