mother's day 2021

 

The immensity of his presence and his brother's absence.

Today is not an easy day. 

Not for so many, and for all different reasons.

What i will say is TIME is precious. 

I am lucky Leif is alive.

I am lucky to still be alive.

I have learned far too many lessons to live life—no matter how short or long it may be

in any other way than as fully as possible.

kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

-Naomi Shihab Nye

always

 

9 years

He died 9 years ago. In my heart, I believe that he was holding on as much as I was fighting to keep him inside of me. He wasn't ready to leave my body. And suddenly, within less than a few hours from the doctor's last check-up, I developed a fever and i was told he had to come out. I remember the doctor's words — There isn't anything more we can do. It was seeing the end before the end. It was the most terrifying feeling in the world. 

In that moment, after all those days and nights of trying desperately to keep him inside my body and advocating for him, I just went quiet. I lost my voice, my strength and myself. I remember rubbing my tummy incessantly in concentrated circles trying to process "the end before the end". I wondered if he knew something was wrong? Surely he felt my heart beating faster and faster. Surely he heard our pleads and cries, mine, his father's and his grandparents? Did he hear the words i whispered through my whole body over and over, "i'm sorry, i'm so sorry."

It was the most helpless feeling I have ever known in my whole life. I was given no choice, no option but to let him go and i couldn't do anything to stop it.

But when he died, I never let go. Nine Augusts have past and i still haven't let go. I just like knowing that i'm going to always hold on to him, keep him close in any way that i can, until i go myself.

This year, we did not get to do anything to remember him. I spent all of August 6 in the hospital where i received an acute lymphoblastic leukemia diagnosis. I've been in the hospital ever since. 

There are so many feelings in August. It's his month, his season. His. Always.

*

For Liam. I love you and miss you every single day. 

Love, Mommy

de tus padres - mexico 2020

leif turns 7 years old

brothers