Each loss evokes all losses. We long for permanence, for our children to remain cute and lovable, for our parents to never leave us, and for our loves to always stand by our sides. Life is constant change, however, and every change represents a loss of what there was before. Fall has become a difficult time for me. Four years ago today I lost my eldest child to suicide. Two years ago on October 31, I lost my mother.
So, I have a clear understanding of life’s impermanence, yet in a strange way, I also find comfort in that. My feelings are echoed in what Patti Smith writes about the loss of her brother, Todd, shortly after the death of her husband:
My brother stayed with me through the days that followed. He promised the children he would be there for them always and would return after the holidays. But exactly a month later he had a massive stroke while wrapping Christmas presents for his daughter. The sudden death of Todd, so soon after Fred’s passing, seemed unbearable. The shock left me numb. I spent hours sitting in Fred’s favorite chair, dreading my own imagination. I rose and performed small tasks with the mute concentration of one imprisoned in ice.
Eventually I left Michigan and returned to New York with our children. One afternoon while crossing the street I
noticed I was crying. But I could not identify the source of my tears. I felt a heat containing the colors of autumn. The dark stone in my heart pulsed quietly, igniting like a coal in a hearth. Who is in my heart? I wondered.
I soon recognized Todd’s humorous spirit, and as I continued my walk I slowly reclaimed an aspect of him that was also myself — a natural optimism. And slowly the leaves of my life turned, and I saw myself pointing out simple things to Fred, skies of blue, clouds of white, hoping to penetrate the veil of a congenital sorrow. I saw his pale eyes looking intently into mine, trying to trap my walleye in his unfaltering gaze. That alone took up several pages that filled me with such painful longing that I fed them into the fire in my heart, like Gogol burning page by page the manuscript of Dead Souls Two. I burned them all, one by one; they did not form ash, did not go cold, but radiated the warmth of human compassion.
Maria Popova describes Patti Smith’s book M Train as “a strange and wonderful consolation for our inconsolable longing for permanency amid a universe driven by perpetual change and inevitable loss.” If you’ve ever lost a loved one, I recommend it.
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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist:
Multi-finalist award winning novel: In the Context of Love
Picture book: Gordy and the Ghost Crab
Poetry chapbook: Sleepwalker
Connect with Linda: LinkTree
Linda, This post moved me so very much. Happy you have found comfort in Patti Smith’s words. I read her first memoir and wondered about this one. I have not lost a parent or a child and do not know how I would cope. Patti Smith evoked it well with her simile about being encased in ice, going about her chores. {{Hugs}} to you this autumn season, my friend.
Thank you for the hugs. I’ve haven’t read her first memoir, but I’m trying to imagine a life so rich one could even write two memoirs. I guess that alone points to the fact that life is constantly changing.