In the beginning,
Grammy forged the quilt
of blood and loss.
One live boy wanting to nurse
even before his dead twin plopped out
onto the stained sheet.
Unsuspected second placenta
retained in her dark and quiet
poisoning her blood.
Six months in bed to heal.
Grammy's sisters took turns caring
for my grandmother Florence,
my mother Barbara
and her new-born brother Larry,
the surviving twin.
Lillian, Clara, Polly rotated care
of their sister Florence,
while little Barbara "Bobby,"
my mama when she was four
wove daisies to master
her big feelings of anger.
Where did her mother go?
why couldn't she get up out of bed?
play with her, care for her?
Disappeared into fabric
squares and circles
made of Bobby's old dresses,
her daddy's old shirts,
her mother's own house-dresses.
Piece after piece, square after square
fitting together stitch after stitch
every day flat on her back
for half a year.
Six months to an under five
is a lifetime of missing mom.
Half a year even when she's all grown,
that four year old still mourns.
The quilt that grammy forged
and forced herself to make
hour after day after week after month
for six long ones - May through November
so as not to go crazy with grief,
while her body healed its blood,
that quilt, that very quilt
now hangs in the hallway
where I live on a hill
listening to bird call and wind.
In mild weather, I open the door.
The hallway becomes a wind tunnel -
ruffling flower-garden pattern quilt suspended from wood in the hall.
Wind ruffles stories that fall
staining the carpet
with bad blood getting better;
dead baby splat into the world.
Origin of my interest in healing
the one left behind?
Maybe the beginning
of how to follow a calling
to heal my ancestors wounds?
Uncle Larry's loss? Extreme.
Lost his traveling buddy.
Lawrence made it; Loughlin did not.
Loss pressed down on him,
later, on his daughters,
Unrequited love
sent into the ethers
echoing echoing echoing
never to return return return.
Vacuous space resorbed
the baby who got away.
Grammy's loss poured
into that quilt
hanging just outside
my treatment room door
where babies who've lost a lot
on their journey Into life,
those who got scraped up
bad enough by the process itself
of getting born,
to need help-
to bind their wounds
come to tell their stories
with sound and movement,
while hurting mamas and
worried papas
learn to decipher
newborn body language;
learn tears are drops of poetry
to be learned by heart,
distilled into essence for pain relief.
Stroke a cheek. Show loving kindness.
Open spaceful listening to the story
till it's done for the moment,
for the day, week or month...
Story never ends till life does.
Stories like quilt squares
link together the tapestry
of loss and triumph.
Ongoing
going on
about life.
