Fall

It is one of those incredible fall days; there is just enough of a breeze to scatter the falling leaves and the sun perfectly warms the reddening treetops to let a golden glow shine below.  It is one of these days that I cannot shake the sadness that you are no longer here to remark on the beauty of such weather. I try to tell myself what you so often reminded me; sometimes you just have to be sad for a while.  This is easier said than done.  I want this terrible ache to subside and this hollow in my chest to stop reminding me of its presence and I want these things immediately, knowing all too well that it is only nebulous, unpredictable time that has control.

Since you left I have seen two or three clients in the midst of or shortly after losing a mother.  When I do carefully disclose my own loss they inevitably ask how it can be done... how did I survive?  And I always, always want nothing more than to reassure them that time will ease the pain and life will go forward.  Something inevitably grabs at me and demands I offer more truth than that and I inevitably say what I am sure was said to me.

Time makes the day to day living easier but the unexpected waves of grief are just as painful when they do come.  In many ways the grief is stronger because it is complicated by expectations that this should be easier now, that time should have healed this wound instead of leaving a bandaged sore that weeps in quiet moments.  Life moves forward and beauty does not cease to exist but it is forever changed.

Juliette breaths rhythmically in her sleep on my chest and I am amazed by the unending circle that is this existence.  I know that you held me like this too and prayed that I would never feel the pain and the grief that you felt at times, all the while knowing that it is inevitable.  We know great love because it gives and honors both joy and sorrow.  Without one we would not have the other.

Juliette Marian Fellows

On February 18th Juliette Marian Fellows came into this world after a precarious eight months, weighing 2 lbs. 2 ozs.  She is a fiercely strong little girl with the sweetest of temperaments and is already a lover of the outdoors and snuggling, just like her grandmother.