Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The grieving mother soul


For Una, and all who grieve,

I send you a prayer with every breath. I cannot begin to comprehend your pain, the scale of your loss.

The storm winds of the mother soul howled around this house last night, and every other house in the area, the tears of God raining down upon us as we battened down our hatches and sent continual prayers that you are finding peace and comfort somehow. We are counting and recounting our own blessings with every prayer. Wishing we could transfer them to you.

Words cannot begin to express the sense of deep, deep sadness that every mother and father in our community feels at this moment. We hold our own, dear children closely to us, as though we can immunize them and ourselves from suffering and pain through our tiny, repeated act of love, wishing, wishing that this would bring your children back to you.

We wake to a blue sky, the rays of sunshine promising hope. But the mood is dark and sombre. The usual school gate chatter is gone. Even the playground is eerily quiet. We are united in your pain: we are all one.

We want to talk but talking changes nothing. Nor does the news. It is like scratching an itch, it momentarily makes things feel better, and then worse. The facts are not what we want. We seek to find a way through the shock, the senselessness, the destructive possibilities of the human spirit. The knife edge of normality which we unknowingly walk along every day and which disaster can shatter in an instant. As I feed our chickens and empty our bins, I wish you the soothing tedium of mundanity.

The mother soul is grieving for one of its own. Know that we are united around you, though you cannot see us or may not know us. We hold the space for you, for you to be as you need, in this moment. We open our Madonna's cloaks, fall into their soft folds, let us hold you and croon you a lullaby to soothe you into sleep and the momentary forgetfulness that it will bring, let us wail together, let us wash you clean of your pain in our tears, let us feed you and hold you as you cry and scream and rage and then lie silent.

I pray that you might find life after death. Someday, somehow.

With love, deepest love, dear Una and all your family.

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful piece Lucy. It's so hard to find anything to say...

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  2. Beautiful piece Lucy, the tragedy is that you should never have had to write it x

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  3. ...beautiful Lucy...no-one in the village knows such pain...may it comfort Una...

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  4. Thank you for saying what we all are feeling. God bless Una.

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  5. beautifully written about such tradegy...comfort in words..i hope some day una feels the same. thank you and love to una x

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  6. To the grieving,I pray constantly " The Holy Face of Jesus" , for those who grieve.

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  7. Dear Mrs Lucy.Pearce,I can remember my late mother who lost three children who were still born and I pray for them constantly.Every day at 3 o'clock.I would also recommend the Rosary and a visit to ,Holywell,north Wales,Yours Sincerely ,Edward.Fullerton.

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  8. Beautifully written. I will keep this mamma and others in my thoughts.

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  9. This is the post I first read on your blog, this is the one that drew me in and made me drop by from time to time...I think I chanced upon it randomnly via Juno, and bang, the grieving mother soul was in front of me.
    I lost my seven year old daughter Lily very suddenly in 2009 and how our worlds change when we lose a child..and how they still march on. Your post is beautiful, I send many blessings and love to Una who I do not know, but hope that she is still enfolded in the Madonna's cloak and is able to find her life again.

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