Incomprehensible

I am unable to comprehend, this evening, the death of Natasha Richardson, the yelping loss within her family, the fracture of what had always seemed whole. A fall on a ski slope, a minor-seeming bump. And then the unreality of her dying.

I can't understand it.

Just as I cannot understand or find the language for the searing beauty of new life, the feeling I had, earlier this afternoon as I held a baby named Eva in my arms—cupped her head in my hands, stared deep into her permanently blue eyes, and sang to her while my husband and her mom talked in the other room. Eva wanted to see the world beyond my windows, and I took her there. I told her daffodil secrets, and about the boy across the way, who stands aboard his skateboard while his new dog runs ahead. His dog is like a horse, I said. His skateboard is like a carriage. Eva balled up her pretty, arabesque-ing hands and almost laughed.

Laugh, Eva, I thought. Laugh and live.

Loss and life. Loss and life. The fragile unknowns. The incomprehensible and the lovely and the deeply sad. A day past. A moon rising.