Friday, February 29, 2008

the letting go

If I think about the twins these days, it's mostly to marvel at the way grief recedes like a tide going out, leaving me walking on sand where there was once only water. Dickinson had it exactly right when she said that, eventually, even great pain is:

Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go.
Calliope is using today -- February's grace note, this afterthought intercalated into the year's usual rhythms -- to reflect on the maybes and the what ifs, what should have been and what almost was. She's collecting links to other posts doing the same. Add your own, if you like. Then take a few moments to listen as Kami imagines the color of her son's eyes and let AMS show you the heart-shaped hollow her twins left behind.

7 comments:

YummySushiPjs said...

I love this post and everything about it. I love the quote, and the beautiful links.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I have never seen that quotation before. She always gets it right somehow.

xo

Caro said...

I'm glad it's receding.

XX

Pamela T. said...

Dickinson's verses capture it so well ... very sorry to hear about the delay in your cycle.

Julia said...

For me, grief does go out most times, but sometimes I find the tide has turned, and, unexpectedly, there is water all around. Again.

Ms. Planner said...

Thank you, Niobe, for your suggestion from Calliope's blog on this imperfect day.

I am so sorry to hear about the cycle getting pushed back. And I think you have every right to have a good cry. Sometimes the stress and the waiting gets to be too much to bear. Thinking of you...

Virginia said...

One of my favorite poems; I've never figured out how one who lived so solitary a life could speak so well of suffering. Perhaps she suffered greatly too, I don't know. But yes, there comes a letting go, after a time, and though life will never be the same again, there is life.