I waken to light flickering into the bedroom from the porch. There is a fire in the chiminea. Carefully, so as not to waken Cheyenne, I creep from the bed, don my kimono, and slip through the adjoining door.
Balboa is lying on a blanket Janine weaved for her bed when she was a little girl. I keep it on the porch now, to warm us when there is a chill in the air. She lies prone, on her back, her head nearest the chiminea, arms at her side, palms up. Her chest rises and falls steadily in deep, even breaths. She is meditating. Good.
She does not open her eyes when I lower myself to a corner of the blanket. I sit tailor fashion, my hands on my knees, and breathe, present for her if she needs, but wishing even my breath so still it cannot disturb her.
From time to time, I add a log to the fire, then return to meditation. Cheyenne slips in, sits on the opposite corner of the blanket, near Balboa's feet. She places a quilt over Balboa, the one she made for Jasmine's bed when they were small. We make eye contact briefly, then close our eyes.
How is it women of the village know to come? But they do, one by one--Ruby, Merilee, Betty, Sena, Cathy, Jessica and her mother Margaret, who taught Jessica the craft of midwifery. My eyes overflow with tears when the twins, Kami and June, enter, quietly as kittens.
No one speaks. We sit. We sit with our love for Balboa, with our memories of her childhood, moments of laughter and tears. We breathe. We are present.
In that hour before first light, when the birds begin their morning calls, the chiminea glows red with the hot coals filling its belly, and Balboa stirs. Her knees jerk to her chest and a cry escapes her throat, guttural. Blindly, she drags herself to my lap, grabs my hips and holds on as if drowning. She cries out again, a sound so deep, agony from the very core of her. It is the sound of birthing, grunting and sorrow wound together as I have never heard before.
It is as if all the pain she has held in her body these past days must come out and she is helpless to hold it back. I am aware of another cry, equally deep, and it is my own throat, my own lungs, my heart that is bellowing. Cheyenne weeps, and others, so full of Balboa's loss and suffering that none would try to hold back this aching, wounded bitterness.
We cry until we are, every last one of us, spent. Balboa loosens her grip on my hips, lays her head in my lap, snuffles into my kimono, curls up in a fetal position, and falls asleep. Blessed sleep. Cheyenne, who laid her head on Balboa's hip and wrapped her arms around her while she cried, now moves again to her feet, places her warm hands on them. I know they're warm because her hands never fail to be Reiki hot when there is a need. Still, she sits silent, lips moving slightly in prayer.
Ruby rises and moves into the house, returning after a time with two teapots and a tray of sweet breads and fruit and cheeses. We are spent, and she serves us silently, careful not to disturb Balboa's rest.
Then, as quietly as they came, the mothers and grandmothers and daughters of the village slip away, one at a time. Cheyenne and Ruby and I sit with our beloved daughter and granddaughter and pray that she may sleep long and waken with hope in her heart.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Mira
We buried Mira today.
My heart is sore, my eyes and throat red and raw, but I am breathing easier than I have in days. The sky is a brilliant blue, clouds lofty, cumulus and white. Pink buds are opening on the plum trees.
Last month, Balboa and Packer arrived, all the way from the Village of Jasper, to spend the winter holiday with us at the lake in the Sierras. It has been wonderful having them here. We knew of their visit, but they surprised us with Balboa's swollen belly and grins so wide we thought their faces might break.
Balboa wanted her child to be born in Ordinary, where she was born, where Cheyenne and I were born, and Ruby, and grandmothers going back on one side or the other for longer than anyone can remember.
Her fathers, Beryl and Ronnie, surprised us further by tagging along, so we were all here, the whole family except for Jasmine, our oldest, who has been across the ocean with her husband and daughter so long.
Packer loved the forests of the Sierras. He said, yes, he could spend a few years here, learning the ways of this land and its creatures, and so they will stay, raising their young one. Bliss.
Then, two days ago--can it be only two days ago? It seems like a century--Jacob came to the door. Something is wrong with Balboa, he said. She is crying, and she hurts. Another time, I might have asked how he knew, but Jacob seems always to know when someone in the village is suffering.
We rushed to the guest house, Cheyenne and I. Jessica, the midwife, had already called for the regional physician, Bettina. "I think we're going to lose the baby," she said, her face grim. "Bettina will know whether there's anything more to be done, or whether, at nearly five months, we can save the child."
But it was not to be. Perhaps the physical agony of premature labor took Balboa's attention from the emotional pain for a few hours, but I cannot take comfort in such speculation. She would not speak afterward, nor would Packer, or if they did, I do not know to whom.
Packer took off to the hills, striding away on his long legs, his boots leaving deep marks on the moist path around the lake. Last night he returned with a small, moss- and lichen-covered log. He had cut the log in half lengthwise and hollowed out the pith, then lined it with beautiful green and gray mosses. He must have climbed very high in the trees to get so much clean, new moss. Cheyenne had begun a quilt for the baby the day they arrived, and Balboa asked if she could wrap the tiny body in the unfinished square.
"Seems right, don't you think?" she said, her sad eyes soft in the light from the partially covered window.
So we washed and wrapped the lifeless darling and kissed it. Balboa held her and crooned a lullabye I didn't know she remembered and handed her to Packer, who placed her in the log. He'd attached the top half ingeniously with a leather hinge the length of the log. Painstakingly, he laced together two additional strips of leather, each attached to one piece of the log, top and bottom. When he pulled the laces taut, the leather was almost entirely inside the log, and so it was sealed.
Packer carried the tiny coffin, remnant of the life-cycle of the forest, and we walked, the village, all of us, even Balboa, to Strawberry Hill. We buried the baby, whom Packer and Balboa decided to call Mira, in the heart of the cherry orchard, where just last fall Sena and David and I had dragged out the stump and roots of the oldest tree, dead after more than seventy-five years of bountiful service, and prepared the ground for planting.
Rains had come before we could plant the new sapling, but today the ground was perfect. So we buried Mira and planted a brand new cherry tree next to her grave.
I do not know why Balboa must suffer like this, why Packer must suffer, and all of us who love them so. There is no way to explain these things. But Sena knows, and Jacob, and Betty, and anyone who gardens or works with animals knows that nature, so bountiful in her gifts, so free with her burgeoning life, is also about death. Without death, there would be no decay, and without decay, no new life springing forth.
And life does spring forth. Always. Everywhere. It is impossible to keep it down.
And so, once again, I sit breathing.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
We are strong women, Ruby, Cheyenne, Balboa and I. We have known sadness before. We will know it again. I would take this sorrow, this body memory from Balboa if I could, for her heart is broken, and she cannot speak to me of it, perhaps speaks to no one of it.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
I cannot bear to see my child suffer.
In.
Nor can I take this from her.
Out.
And so I pray.
In.
And I breathe.
Out.
Cool air in.
Warm air out.
Life in.
Life out.
I give gratitude for the strength of my body, for the strength of my mind, for passion and compassion, for life that will not be put down.
In.
I give gratitude for the strength in Balboa and Packer, for the strength of their love, for the strength of all who love them.
Out.
I give gratitude for time that will dull the pain, can dull the memory of pain, once healed.
In.
I give gratitude for breath.
Out.
In.
Out.
*Alice Walker from "This Was Not an Area of Large Plantations: Suffering Too Insignificant for the Majority to See" in We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
My heart is sore, my eyes and throat red and raw, but I am breathing easier than I have in days. The sky is a brilliant blue, clouds lofty, cumulus and white. Pink buds are opening on the plum trees.
Last month, Balboa and Packer arrived, all the way from the Village of Jasper, to spend the winter holiday with us at the lake in the Sierras. It has been wonderful having them here. We knew of their visit, but they surprised us with Balboa's swollen belly and grins so wide we thought their faces might break.
Balboa wanted her child to be born in Ordinary, where she was born, where Cheyenne and I were born, and Ruby, and grandmothers going back on one side or the other for longer than anyone can remember.
Her fathers, Beryl and Ronnie, surprised us further by tagging along, so we were all here, the whole family except for Jasmine, our oldest, who has been across the ocean with her husband and daughter so long.
Packer loved the forests of the Sierras. He said, yes, he could spend a few years here, learning the ways of this land and its creatures, and so they will stay, raising their young one. Bliss.
Then, two days ago--can it be only two days ago? It seems like a century--Jacob came to the door. Something is wrong with Balboa, he said. She is crying, and she hurts. Another time, I might have asked how he knew, but Jacob seems always to know when someone in the village is suffering.
We rushed to the guest house, Cheyenne and I. Jessica, the midwife, had already called for the regional physician, Bettina. "I think we're going to lose the baby," she said, her face grim. "Bettina will know whether there's anything more to be done, or whether, at nearly five months, we can save the child."
But it was not to be. Perhaps the physical agony of premature labor took Balboa's attention from the emotional pain for a few hours, but I cannot take comfort in such speculation. She would not speak afterward, nor would Packer, or if they did, I do not know to whom.
Packer took off to the hills, striding away on his long legs, his boots leaving deep marks on the moist path around the lake. Last night he returned with a small, moss- and lichen-covered log. He had cut the log in half lengthwise and hollowed out the pith, then lined it with beautiful green and gray mosses. He must have climbed very high in the trees to get so much clean, new moss. Cheyenne had begun a quilt for the baby the day they arrived, and Balboa asked if she could wrap the tiny body in the unfinished square.
"Seems right, don't you think?" she said, her sad eyes soft in the light from the partially covered window.
So we washed and wrapped the lifeless darling and kissed it. Balboa held her and crooned a lullabye I didn't know she remembered and handed her to Packer, who placed her in the log. He'd attached the top half ingeniously with a leather hinge the length of the log. Painstakingly, he laced together two additional strips of leather, each attached to one piece of the log, top and bottom. When he pulled the laces taut, the leather was almost entirely inside the log, and so it was sealed.
Packer carried the tiny coffin, remnant of the life-cycle of the forest, and we walked, the village, all of us, even Balboa, to Strawberry Hill. We buried the baby, whom Packer and Balboa decided to call Mira, in the heart of the cherry orchard, where just last fall Sena and David and I had dragged out the stump and roots of the oldest tree, dead after more than seventy-five years of bountiful service, and prepared the ground for planting.
Rains had come before we could plant the new sapling, but today the ground was perfect. So we buried Mira and planted a brand new cherry tree next to her grave.
I do not know why Balboa must suffer like this, why Packer must suffer, and all of us who love them so. There is no way to explain these things. But Sena knows, and Jacob, and Betty, and anyone who gardens or works with animals knows that nature, so bountiful in her gifts, so free with her burgeoning life, is also about death. Without death, there would be no decay, and without decay, no new life springing forth.
And life does spring forth. Always. Everywhere. It is impossible to keep it down.
And so, once again, I sit breathing.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
We are strong women, Ruby, Cheyenne, Balboa and I. We have known sadness before. We will know it again. I would take this sorrow, this body memory from Balboa if I could, for her heart is broken, and she cannot speak to me of it, perhaps speaks to no one of it.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
I cannot bear to see my child suffer.
In.
Nor can I take this from her.
Out.
And so I pray.
In.
And I breathe.
Out.
Cool air in.
Warm air out.
Life in.
Life out.
I give gratitude for the strength of my body, for the strength of my mind, for passion and compassion, for life that will not be put down.
In.
I give gratitude for the strength in Balboa and Packer, for the strength of their love, for the strength of all who love them.
Out.
I give gratitude for time that will dull the pain, can dull the memory of pain, once healed.
In.
I give gratitude for breath.
Out.
In.
Out.
May you be free
May you be happy
May you be at peace
May you be at rest
May you know we remember you*
*Alice Walker from "This Was Not an Area of Large Plantations: Suffering Too Insignificant for the Majority to See" in We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
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