What The Death Of My Son Taught Me

                                  There is a paradox to pain, it softens.

 The first response is shock, a sword slicing into your heart, so fierce it numbs. Once the numbness and disbelief begin to disappear, then anvil heavy boots pound on your heart’s door. The awfulness of the awful leaves you breathless. Somehow, the air has melted as you gasp for oxygen.

 My son died suddenly on a Sunday night in March 2025. When his wife called, I fell to my knees and screamed and screamed one word: NO…nononononoohno.

In stunned 45 minutes of silence, my husband and I drove to their home. Alone we climbed to the second story and there he was, as if in a dream, lying flat on the floor. Peacefully, unnaturally still. I collapsed next to him. A caldera of loss smothered me. All I wanted to do was nestle him back into the soft, warm safety of my body. For weeks the pain sat in my womb. I unconsciously rubbed my stomach to ease the ache of emptiness. 

Over the past 15 months I have thought a lot about loss, especially of a child from the mother’s point of view.  Not to diminish the pain of other’s, I believe the pain of a mother contains another layer of grief…for that part of her that now is gone.

 For nine months my son lived inside of me. We were viscerally and biologically connected. My blood, my tissue nourished him until he was ready to come here and be his own. With fearful anticipation and joy, I felt him tearing through my womb. When he finally struggled his way through an exhausted sweetness blanketed us both as he was placed into my arms.   

Now, 55 years later, he is gone. The layered grief of his death has taught me to see situations with softer eyes, kinder, more open, less judgmental. To breathe deep, to love, to cherish, to adore more.  

I have gathered comfort knowing as long as I breathe, he is alive. All I need to do is open the door in my heart where we sit together as one.

 

21 Grams

Listening to longevity experts, the importance of being social seems to be even more important than exercise and a good diet.

 It would be interesting if they were to study the impact of creative making and interacting with nature as symbiotic ways of socializing along with human interaction.

 As both a creative maker and someone in tune with nature, I find it is necessary to be away from human interaction for sustained periods of time to “socialize” with that energy field which sits beyond the human familiar.  

 When I am in my studio, I am attempting to listen, honor and encourage my “soul” to communicate through me. This ego, named Eve, is aware that my awareness is not contained solely in the vessel of my physical form. My ego and my soul communicate with lively enthusiasm when we dissolve the reality barrier and solve puzzles by creating worlds in paint and paper.

 There is gleeful giddiness in this two-on-two communion. When things go haywire (which they do), it is my ego, straining for dominance, that clashes and destroys the cerebral moments and breaks the creative spell. Then I crash, burn, dust off, let go and reinvite my soul back into the game.

 Is it irony or purpose? My soul cannot create without my ego, yet to create, my ego must give my soul all the space and freedom she needs…she is the music, I am the sheet onto which the score is written.

 I spend a lot of time outside, breathing in sky, earth and air. I fall in love again and again, nurtured by all I can see, touch and feel. Physics has taught us we are combined miracles of particles and atoms, floating in contained forms which we visualize as ourselves and surroundings, from rock to cloud, ephemeral, yet dense, solid yet electrically loose.

 As we perceive these forms as stagnant, our atoms vibrate and bounce in a vocabulary of emotions with our surroundings. When I place my hand on the trunk of a tree, and my human warmth travels deep into the tunnels of her trunk, I feel that she feels my presence as I feel hers. Not separate from but embraced within a wonderous tapestry of everything.

footnote 1907 experiment by Duncan MacDougall, placing his consenting dying patients on a scale and noting at the moment their final exhale, they weighed 21 grams less.