a sick child. a string of painful restless nights for him. rude awakenings. too much missed school. the surgery to remove our dog smellie's melanoma. too many tiffs requiring apologies and forgiveness. a mass shooting in a nearby tight-knit community—eighteen people dead. the shooter's car and body found a mere mile from michael's studio. conversations about gun violence and gun safety measures. conversations about suicide and its reasons. softly schooling myopic, well-meaning people who think suicide is somehow a selfish act rather than from unimaginable suffering. steadfastly countering other people's ignorant comments on the topic. too many sleepless nights. another uncomfortable, contentious IEP. smugness. the feeling that others are disingenuous. mistrust. calvin's grand mal after five and a half weeks of seizure-freedom.
and then, this poem reappears:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
—Wendell Berry
i am hugging you. and thank you. (Lisa h)
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