Grief Loss Mourning

Eleanora Ross

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:13:17 +0000

Dear Survivor,

China Earthquake

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:14:29 +0000

China on Sunday marked Children’s Day, a painful reminder of the thousands of children killed in the recent earthquake, including an estimated 7,000 who were the only children in their families because of Beijing’s population control policies.

Rhonda Erickson

Lucy Wightman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:25:01 +0000

Surviving the death of my only child has taken quite a toll on my life.

The Death of a Child - A Lifetime Journey

Lucy Wightman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:10:16 +0000

When a parent dies, you lose your past; when a child dies, you lose your future. - Anonymous

The Equivalent

Lucy Wightman — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:58:35 +0000

The equivalent level of pain in an unremitting illness or injury would be enough to kill the organism. The organs in each system would slowly give in, allowing the person to slip bit by bit into hazy relief. Crueler than any cancer, disfiguring wounds or organ disintegration, this homeless malice reveals no chance of recovery, regaining, coming back, looking forward.

We are different, from the rest and also from each other. I belong to the group of mothers with missing cells now deadened under pounds of dirt or a furnace fire. Their cells still swarm in us, pieces of unrequited, aimless love whose talons fall under flightless wings. Forever denied our place in the food chain, the predator’s prey actually becomes something after the struggle to live is relinquished.

What could the purpose of the lifelong cell exchange with our babies be? Our tissue, organs, blood and fluid continue as their sanctuary, remaining until old age and death. My body’s search is a craving, in its hollow chambers the cramps close in on themselves in spirals, finding no floor to rest. Hers knows no search, her features are erased and the cells I carry for her require the equivalent.

We Mothers

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:34:25 +0000

None of you know unless you are a mother whose cells have been ripped from their evolutionary purpose.

Lullaby by Louise Gluck

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:55:40 +0000

The soul’s like all matter:
why would it stay intact, stay faithful to its one form,
when it could be free?

Completion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:55:01 +0000

He must provide for all earth’s cheated mothers
In His vast heavens of shining sphere on sphere,

The Borders by Sharon Olds

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:50:59 +0000

I said I will take care of you, I will
put you first. I will not ever
have a daughter the way she had me,

My First Well Day Since Many Ill by Emily Dickinson

Lucy Wightman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:47:45 +0000

My loss, by sickness — Was it Loss?
Or that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave —
Then — measuring the Sun —