Incomprehensible

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

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.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

yes, this story has got through my defenses- tragic is the only fitting word xx

Becca said...

Events like this put life in perspective, don't they...we should all dance while we can :)

Jinksy said...

The spiders web was an extremely apt photo - all life is linked in exactly the smae, fragile fashion...

Sherry said...

I'm grieving right now for a great-aunt who intentionally signed a living will, who's family is now in a situation in which they feel the obligation to follow her wishes. The natural rhythms of life's beginning and ending are being disrupted. This is the hardest, most ugliest death I've needed to face because it is all too comprehensible.

This "incomprehensible-ness" that you speak of is a gift and protection. These mysteries are tied up in the rightness, the wonder, of that next moon rise.

It's helped me to sort through thoughts that keep weighing me down. Thank you, Beth, for this post.

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