We all have hard days, hard experiences, hard seasons.  I’ve been through some and expect to have more.  I think it’s our familiarity with hard times that helps us be compassionate as others face hard times.  We know it can be tough, lonely, even horrible, so we can come alongside someone else with more compassion, understanding and physical presence.  At least there is hope we can do so.  Do we make mistakes in those moments?  Yes, of course we do — as others do with us.  But we keep trying to figure out what being together in this thing called life is all about and how to share  the weight of it together.

This week I (and many others) attended a funeral to support someone who is facing the hardest of times — the loss of a child. I did not know the daughter who died, only the mother, so this is not my loss, but I found I needed to put the jumble of emotions somewhere — order them, allow image to take expression.  I don’t record it here as truth (I’m certainly not trying to speak for that mother) but as wondering, as compassion practice, because if I can imagine what might be so, I might be able to open up my heart enough to be present in the reality of grief for my friend.

Maybe, on a summer’s day
her mom brushed her hair,
pulling it all back
out of her eyes, securing her
with an elastic that could hold
through all the jubilant contortions
of her daughter’s desires.

How does love stretch
enough to make room
for all the possibilities,
all the finalities?

— she lies there
still and silent,
hair long and loose
around her face, her mom
restrained to smooth it,
not wanting (but willing herself)
to allow a few strands
around her daughter’s
smooth pale forehead,
to escape.

© 2018 – Laurel Archer

Featured Image: Close up – Emma Hair.