Yesterday I woke, and was 54 years old. And it was the first birthday of my life when I was not greeted by the voice that gave me birth.
It was a hard day.
I thought grief was nearly done with me, but the events of the previous weekend brought us closer again, grief and I. Yesterday it caught me up, like a white cloth in a storm; soaked and shook and wrung me and then cast me up on a raw place, a dusty porch where, gradually, I dried and warmed in the sun. And then the day grew better, when I could see it again.
This is just how it is, and it's better to go limp and allow yourself to be tossed around; it hurts less than fighting against a force that's stronger than your rational mind or conscious will.
--
On Saturday I had gotten up early, before anyone else, and left my father's house and walked down the railroad tracks and out through the field, still gravelly with forty-year-old railroad cinders that now sprout hemlocks and spindly pin cherries and blue-flowered viper's blugloss. I remembered walking there through the snow with my mother on one of our last excursions together, getting some Christmas greens last year. Canada geese honked uneasily from the pond on the other side of the tracks, and as I entered the woods and climbed up the ridge I startled a partridge. On the top of the ridge, which is narrow, steep, and dark, were the large trees I remembered from decades ago. A whir of large wings stirred the canopy. I stood there for a while, watching, listening, and then I walked east along the ridge and the old fenceline, picking my footfalls carefully. I came to a particular tree that had a split just below waist-height, and saw that it had a cavity between the divided trunks. Without hesitating, I knelt down on the moss and started picking through the stones that lay there. I chose six or seven and stacked them in the tree's cavity: a small, balanced cairn.
This, too, was not a rationally considered act.
As I came back to myself yesterday, I thought about it though, and was glad I'd acted, and not thought too much. I've done things like that all my life. Not often. But when I've needed to, something - some urge - has beckoned, and most of the time, I've gotten out of the way and listened and acted, in private, accompanied not by human eyes but by a catbird hopping in the branches and the breathing of the trees.
--
My birthday ended happily. I talked to my father, who had had a good day and had also sent me a special gift, and my husband cooked dinner for me and our dear friends and neighbors, who sang me "the birthday song" in English and then in Icelandic at the urging of their three-year-old daughter. We drank champagne, and ate carrot cake; the kerosene lamp glowed.
Next year they'll be back in Iceland, and who knows where we'll be. Life moves on, like the wind, and we can choose to observe the moments: the circle of the table, of the branches, of the hands, of the stones.
Beth, I'm sorry for your grief and happy that your birthday did become a happy occasion. The photo reveals a very cosy, warm atmosphere of joy. May the year ahead be an easier one for you, with more happiness than sadness. (I've had a sad day today - I learned that a dear friend passed away last night. I cried for a while and then happy memories of him sustain me.)
Posted by: marja-leena | September 21, 2006 at 11:20 PM
But, for now, we are here. And how meaningful it is, how altogether amazing, to be here now!
Happy birthday, Beth.
Posted by: Teju | September 22, 2006 at 12:38 AM
That was a beautiful and touching passage. And wise; there really isn't any better way to cope with a tide of feeling than to ride it where it will go, and then look around and see where you are afterward. May your birthdays roll on for decades more.
All my (shameful, for having forgotten) best.
Posted by: peter | September 22, 2006 at 01:26 AM
Beth, this is making me cry - for you, for me, for all of us, and feel glad to know you.
Posted by: Jean | September 22, 2006 at 05:49 AM
Oh, Beth... No words, just hugs.
Posted by: Lorianne | September 22, 2006 at 06:03 AM
May you welcome the new days' gifts. Happy new year.
Posted by: Susan | September 22, 2006 at 08:56 AM
(o)
Posted by: Pica | September 22, 2006 at 09:51 AM
I'm glad the day ended on a happy note. Happy birthday!
Posted by: blork | September 22, 2006 at 10:37 AM
Happy Birthday, Beth!
Grief revisits us in different ways forever, as far as I can tell. Each time it brings poignant new gifts born from love, circumstance, and suffering. Don't let anyone tell you what to expect or when and how to stop mourning (including yourself!).
This is also a good occasion for gratitude, for our own lives and for the lives of those we love...
Posted by: Pascale Soleil | September 22, 2006 at 12:53 PM
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
(W.H. Auden)
Posted by: Nathan | September 22, 2006 at 03:33 PM
Birthdays - yours & theirs - remain the difficult times after their passing. Mine's on Christmas Day & my parents (mother living, but now in a nursing home, father dead) always ensured that, on that busiest of family days, it received equal billing. Happy birthday, happy memories, Beth.
Posted by: Dick | September 22, 2006 at 04:51 PM
Belated Happy Birthday, Beth!
Eleven years later, I still grieve, but differently now. (More like today's poem.)
Life is ever rich and short.
Posted by: MB | September 22, 2006 at 05:53 PM
Very wise, emotional wisdom.
May your next birthday be more completely joyous.
Posted by: zhoen | September 22, 2006 at 09:25 PM
That was a beautiful, if melancholy, birthday. But sometimes that seems what birthdays are supposed to be... time to reflect on your life. Here in Japan people will very often not start thinking of themselves on their birthdays and wedding days, but instead give thanks to their parents, especially their mothers, for bringing them into the world. I guess that's what it's all supposed to be about: thanks.
Trees and cairns, markers of place and time.
Posted by: butuki | September 23, 2006 at 09:40 PM
ah.. sorry about the grief, and glad for the birthday. Life is so full, so robustly, achingly full of these painful juxtapositions. The way they pull us in all directions, it hurts and we know for sure we are alive. Sweet of you to share this really tender poste. Thanks.
Posted by: lekshe | September 23, 2006 at 11:26 PM
(o)
Posted by: dale | September 25, 2006 at 01:12 AM
Beth,
I cried when I read your first sentence.It reminded me so much of what I felt when my mother died two years ago.
Now, when I think about her, I still get tears in my eyes, but it is not a sad tears. I know she is with me where ever I go, because I carry her in my heart. And, you Beth, will have smile on your face when you think all the beautiful moments you shared with your mother.
Have a beautiful belated birthday.
Posted by: anasalwa | September 26, 2006 at 10:20 AM