I was driving home from a weekend in Toronto the other morning - very early - under steel grey skies that pressed in like prison walls. The cold, wet rain made it feel like the whole earth was grieving something, and even the music I was playing from a CD (Magic Carpet Ride) that Hannah had put together for "Dad's Trips" couldn't snap me out of the melancholy I was feeling.
Sadness is an embracing emotion, and the melancholy that accompanies it shapes the moments with crystal clear images and memories. No matter what makes you sad, it has the propensity for bringing us closer to the people and places that we love than do some of the good memories we enjoy. Think about the last time you were truly sad, and consider the details in the circumstance, and you will know of what I speak.
As I drove through North Bay, I decided to try to cheer myself up with some light Christmas music by James Taylor - an album that I have loved over the years. And as it happens often, this one particular song came on that reminded me of Noah, and considering the mood I was in and the unrelenting greyness that surrounded me, I just burst into tears that matched the size and quantity of those wicked raindrops hitting my windshield. Unbidden and uncontrolled, they just fell for about ten minutes, and when it was over - both the song and the tears - I felt as though something had been lifted. As if I had purged myself (again) of lingering remnants of grief from losing Noah some 16 years ago.
Or was it grief?
I wondered about this moment, and the ones in the past when I have been reminded of that tragedy and loss, and of how often I lose myself in it. I wondered if, indeed, it is grief that I am experiencing after all of these years, or if it is a reminder - an intimate, loving, private reminder of a life that was not lived, but one that had such profound meaning. I tell the few with whom I share that I remember every part of that little guy - his face so beautiful, pretty lips and long eyelashes, his fingers like that of a piano player, so solid in his skin. Fine, fine hair covered his newly born body, and he looked like he was sleeping. And for the few precious moments that we had together, we were one.
Him, naked against my chest, no heartbeat, but a rhythm between us, nonetheless; my heart beating for him. Oh, we were one that Christmas morning.
Love is such a burden, isn't it? A complicated, perplexing, necessary burden. In Noah's death, how could I ever have known then what I know now...
...that he was a gift of purest love.
"Who comes this night, this wintry night
As to a lowly manger...
Who sends this song upon the air
to ease the soul that's aching
to still the cry of deep despair
and heal that heart that's breaking..."
James Taylor: Who Comes This Night
http://youtu.be/30-h4ulNDow
