A Calm Falls Upon Me

Day 1544.

Sad news reaches me as 2 more beautiful souls leave this world.

These deaths came a day apart, as did the news of onsets of labour and miracle pregnancies. As I sit here writing I hear my 3 year old Luke singing The Circle of Life and I note that my deep sadness takes so many forms.

My sadness for my Mum who lost her best friend of 71 years.
My own sadness for the loss of this extraordinary woman.
My sadness that the world will be left the poorer without her; a woman who took in refugees, the homeless and opened her heart as well as her home, long before it was fashionable to do so; a woman who believed in everything and scorned nothing. I weep because 88 years is not enough- the world needs more people like her, not less.

I weep when I hear that her daughters arrive at the Stockholm hospital too late, but that she is laid out in a room bathed in candlelight. God bless Sweden, for this is the the dignity and beauty with which to honor the dead and their grievers. I weep as my heart is touched by the beauty of this and my sadness is heavy as I realize that this dignity will never be afforded in the USA.

News of the second death finds me in the early hours of what seems to be the same day. My friend’s open and massive heart has finally failed her after 30 years of pacemakers. She leaves a young family with presents already wrapped under the tree and extraordinary artworks in various states of completion, ready for the high art world exhibition that Covid keeps shifting. Her recent collaboration was on the verge of setting the London art scene alight. This meeting of souls and minds brought her inspiration, joy and acclaim. I am happy for that as I celebrate her genius that glimpsed that peak, though her heart failed her before she could arrive. I weep for all of this as my sadness shape-shifts through all of these elements.

I sit here with my cognac and cigarettes, finally silent after all the phone calls and though my tears fall, I realise that my own grief in the loss of Luke has shifted.

Is it that my grief is not a priority anymore? Or is it IN me, rather than ON me? Or both?
It’s no longer eating me.

Was my grief like a challenging food that took 1,544 days to chew?
It’s been choking me, it’s broken teeth, it’s caused me to wretch, vomit, spit. It’s given me indigestion, diarrhea, unspeakable cramps that brought me to my knees and rendered me unable to speak and now, somehow it has passed into my every cell.

It is still sad, it is still tragic and I still miss him - but somehow it is part of me rather than destroying me.
Have I metabolized the trauma of losing Luke?

I have been feeling this way for a while, but these sad sad losses shine a light on this alteration of my state.

I know that this serenity may be passing, but for now, a welcome calm is upon me as I raise my glass to the night sky and toast Gun and Louise ……..and wonder if Luke was there to greet them.