In May 2020, Mari was interviewed on Grief Out Loud about Integrating Grief ~ have a listen here!
"My Mother's Dust" ~ a performance piece about trekking the Camino of Santiago of Compostela after Mari's mother's death
First Grief Post ~ 2/10/16
I have never used this platform to speak of anything of this nature. But this morning and perhaps this new moon has inspired a stream of life force that is demanding to be spoken and as thus, here I go. Ride with me, won’t you?
Grief has been my deepest, most faithful lover for the last several years. It has been my teacher and my companion. For a long time and up until recently, I considered that a misfortune. A misfortune that I was in a ‘’spiritual’’ community for 14 years that claimed pure love but when I chose to leave, cursed me and cut me out of their lives. A misfortune that I had to go into exile, feeling like a lost demon that would be a danger to anyone I encountered. A misfortune that my mother died six months later, after I was estranged from her for over a decade (due to the ‘’spiritual’’ community’s rules) and thus saw her only twice before seeing her on her deathbed. A misfortune to have met a love and given my heart and then lost love and companionship. A misfortune to be in exile alone.
But those were just the obvious ones – the others, at times greater, came from the words of consolation that stung deeper than the initial hurts. The words of ‘’what is it now?, you just have to accept things and move on, you are too much, your grief scares me, your grief makes me have to feel my own and I don’t like that, are you done yet?, it’s not my job to help heal anyone other than myself’’ – sending me into a realization that no one around me really knew how to be with grief. And how would anyone when it’s not culturally accepted or understood.
So many times I have felt that I can’t do it anymore, I can’t feel it anymore. I don’t have the strength. I have felt alone in the darkness and desperately afraid. But it hasn’t been grief that demands more than what I’ve got, it’s our culture that knows nothing of how to be with one another in grief.
Grief does not isolate. It’s we who isolate – running into our corners and safe spots to hammer out the feelings and get over it so we can reintegrate into regular society. So we can be ourselves again.
It’s not anyone’s fault.
As a culture we haven’t been taught to be with one another in grief. We come together for celebrations, we come together to welcome new life. We understand that when a child is born, it’s a life long blessing and burden. We don’t shame parents for still having their child a week later, a year later, ten years later. We don’t ask them when that child will be gone so that we can just be with them or we can ‘’have them back.’’
Grief is part of life, like the rhythm of birth and death. Sometimes there is huge grief that stops us in our tracks and sometimes there is smaller grief. But when it is not felt and held, it will pile up and demand to be heard. Let’s not wait for that quake.
In my grief, I have felt very alone. Very few can be there for the snot-filled wailing that is grief. We want to be there for the story of redemption – how we rose up from the ashes and how that pain was for good after all. When I’m in my deep pain, I don’t care how it’s good. If I think about how it might be good, it makes me an observer. I’m a feeler. I’m a being-with type of gal.
Not to get religious, god forbid, but even Jesus had people carrying his burden with him. He had friends, he had love and a broken heart. This isn’t about him but we might notice that the ones who carry big burdens, never do it alone. There is a village of deriders and a village of supporters. That in order to rise from the fucking ashes, we need someone to carry us off our burden, wipe us down, clean our wounds, love us and mercifully pray over us. We need generosity of the village, wrapping us up in love and praying over us. Then and then only sometimes, mayyyybe, we’ll rise up from the ashes.
Spanish is my first language and I’m a lover of words and their root meanings. In Spanish we don’t say ‘’I am sorry for your loss’’ we say ‘’te quiero dar mi pésame’’ – pésame translates to ‘’weight’’ – “I want to be with you in the weight of what you are going through.” There’s such a feeling of ‘being-with’ that deeply speaks to me. not just feeling sorry for what you are going through. But to join with you in taking on the weight and walking with you in that weight. Doing that doesn’t take from me, it gives to me, it deepens me, it stretches my heart when I not only know your story. When I feel your story and we walk it together.
As a midwife for over 20 years, I remind women and families and now the midwives I teach, that midwife means ‘’with woman.’’ And midwives need midwives too.
Grief is not isolating. Grief is the glue that brings us all together. We mistake that glue for a corrosive adhesive we have to wipe away. No, silly, don’t wipe it away! Let it bring us closer. Your garden won’t wither if you let others into your playground. Your garden will double, triple and quadruple in size! You won’t lose your tree house, you’ll have a more beautiful forested one instead.
If we really change this in our culture, we will revolutionize love. If we don’t isolate because we have kids or we don’t have kids or we’re in a partnership or we’re not. If we don’t isolate because we are new in town or we’ve been here forever, and blah blah blah, we’ll have wayyyyy more love. More generosity. Can we hear each other’s stories? Can we not make each other squeeze into these unrealistic vice grips that strangle us?
Can we ask one another ‘’have you grieved enough’’ instead of ‘’are you done grieving yet?’’ Realizing that what we’re really asking is ‘’have you felt loved enough and can I love you more?’’
Grief has been my deepest, most faithful lover for the last several years. It has been my teacher and my companion. For a long time and up until recently, I considered that a misfortune. A misfortune that I was in a ‘’spiritual’’ community for 14 years that claimed pure love but when I chose to leave, cursed me and cut me out of their lives. A misfortune that I had to go into exile, feeling like a lost demon that would be a danger to anyone I encountered. A misfortune that my mother died six months later, after I was estranged from her for over a decade (due to the ‘’spiritual’’ community’s rules) and thus saw her only twice before seeing her on her deathbed. A misfortune to have met a love and given my heart and then lost love and companionship. A misfortune to be in exile alone.
But those were just the obvious ones – the others, at times greater, came from the words of consolation that stung deeper than the initial hurts. The words of ‘’what is it now?, you just have to accept things and move on, you are too much, your grief scares me, your grief makes me have to feel my own and I don’t like that, are you done yet?, it’s not my job to help heal anyone other than myself’’ – sending me into a realization that no one around me really knew how to be with grief. And how would anyone when it’s not culturally accepted or understood.
So many times I have felt that I can’t do it anymore, I can’t feel it anymore. I don’t have the strength. I have felt alone in the darkness and desperately afraid. But it hasn’t been grief that demands more than what I’ve got, it’s our culture that knows nothing of how to be with one another in grief.
Grief does not isolate. It’s we who isolate – running into our corners and safe spots to hammer out the feelings and get over it so we can reintegrate into regular society. So we can be ourselves again.
It’s not anyone’s fault.
As a culture we haven’t been taught to be with one another in grief. We come together for celebrations, we come together to welcome new life. We understand that when a child is born, it’s a life long blessing and burden. We don’t shame parents for still having their child a week later, a year later, ten years later. We don’t ask them when that child will be gone so that we can just be with them or we can ‘’have them back.’’
Grief is part of life, like the rhythm of birth and death. Sometimes there is huge grief that stops us in our tracks and sometimes there is smaller grief. But when it is not felt and held, it will pile up and demand to be heard. Let’s not wait for that quake.
In my grief, I have felt very alone. Very few can be there for the snot-filled wailing that is grief. We want to be there for the story of redemption – how we rose up from the ashes and how that pain was for good after all. When I’m in my deep pain, I don’t care how it’s good. If I think about how it might be good, it makes me an observer. I’m a feeler. I’m a being-with type of gal.
Not to get religious, god forbid, but even Jesus had people carrying his burden with him. He had friends, he had love and a broken heart. This isn’t about him but we might notice that the ones who carry big burdens, never do it alone. There is a village of deriders and a village of supporters. That in order to rise from the fucking ashes, we need someone to carry us off our burden, wipe us down, clean our wounds, love us and mercifully pray over us. We need generosity of the village, wrapping us up in love and praying over us. Then and then only sometimes, mayyyybe, we’ll rise up from the ashes.
Spanish is my first language and I’m a lover of words and their root meanings. In Spanish we don’t say ‘’I am sorry for your loss’’ we say ‘’te quiero dar mi pésame’’ – pésame translates to ‘’weight’’ – “I want to be with you in the weight of what you are going through.” There’s such a feeling of ‘being-with’ that deeply speaks to me. not just feeling sorry for what you are going through. But to join with you in taking on the weight and walking with you in that weight. Doing that doesn’t take from me, it gives to me, it deepens me, it stretches my heart when I not only know your story. When I feel your story and we walk it together.
As a midwife for over 20 years, I remind women and families and now the midwives I teach, that midwife means ‘’with woman.’’ And midwives need midwives too.
Grief is not isolating. Grief is the glue that brings us all together. We mistake that glue for a corrosive adhesive we have to wipe away. No, silly, don’t wipe it away! Let it bring us closer. Your garden won’t wither if you let others into your playground. Your garden will double, triple and quadruple in size! You won’t lose your tree house, you’ll have a more beautiful forested one instead.
If we really change this in our culture, we will revolutionize love. If we don’t isolate because we have kids or we don’t have kids or we’re in a partnership or we’re not. If we don’t isolate because we are new in town or we’ve been here forever, and blah blah blah, we’ll have wayyyyy more love. More generosity. Can we hear each other’s stories? Can we not make each other squeeze into these unrealistic vice grips that strangle us?
Can we ask one another ‘’have you grieved enough’’ instead of ‘’are you done grieving yet?’’ Realizing that what we’re really asking is ‘’have you felt loved enough and can I love you more?’’
Tres Años ~ commemorating Mari's mother's 3 year deathday 4/10/17
Three years ago you died. Without words, you called me home. You waited.
I washed you. I’d never seen your naked body. But I washed you - like a nurse, like a mother, a midwife, washing the newborn. I didn’t know it’d be your last bath but then your breath shifted and I knew. I got dad and Ada and after an hour or so, you exhaled for your last time.
You were there when I inhaled my first time.
It’s weird you’re not here.
I told you, before it was true, that I was okay. I told you before I knew for sure, that I was well. I believed it at the time, but hot damn, I really didn’t know what was around the corner …. The hell that I’d live through, coming back from your grave and mine.
I live, mom. I’m breathing a breath that’s giving back to me now.
I’ve had lovers I’d wished you’d met and others you’d wish I hadn’t. I can’t believe how much life goes into one life. How much story, rhyme, and wrongs.
Poetry has rekindled my fire, and leather…. skin to touch, caress, and burn. You won’t meet my children, but I might not either.
I wait, I wonder, I stay, I care. I’m here. You’re not, but your stories, mama, they live.
I think of you on that stallion. Fierce. Loyal. Awake.
Just like me.
I still love flowers in my hair. The more fragrant the better. I’ll plant more this year, in the ground and in my hair. I promise.
Mami, sometimes I wish you’d come back.
But then I wouldn’t have this day – this day to say it’s the day you left your body.
I wouldn’t have the memory of your last breath. Or of dad, leaning over you, kissing you, stroking your hair, telling you his last words of love, passion, and caressing you in a way I’d never seen before. If you were here, maybe the love between the two of you would still be a hidden mystery.
I wouldn’t have walked those miles with your dust.
I wouldn’t have known that your you, is my me.
If you were here, I wouldn’t have you in the sky and in the sea. I wouldn’t have you in my lost blood.
You’d be locked in time.
Death defies time. It stops and stretches it.
That’s where I am.
Timeless, embracing time. Calling it to me. Saying yes. Stepping in.
I’m the fruit of your labor, laboring in my own field of flames.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank
You.
I washed you. I’d never seen your naked body. But I washed you - like a nurse, like a mother, a midwife, washing the newborn. I didn’t know it’d be your last bath but then your breath shifted and I knew. I got dad and Ada and after an hour or so, you exhaled for your last time.
You were there when I inhaled my first time.
It’s weird you’re not here.
I told you, before it was true, that I was okay. I told you before I knew for sure, that I was well. I believed it at the time, but hot damn, I really didn’t know what was around the corner …. The hell that I’d live through, coming back from your grave and mine.
I live, mom. I’m breathing a breath that’s giving back to me now.
I’ve had lovers I’d wished you’d met and others you’d wish I hadn’t. I can’t believe how much life goes into one life. How much story, rhyme, and wrongs.
Poetry has rekindled my fire, and leather…. skin to touch, caress, and burn. You won’t meet my children, but I might not either.
I wait, I wonder, I stay, I care. I’m here. You’re not, but your stories, mama, they live.
I think of you on that stallion. Fierce. Loyal. Awake.
Just like me.
I still love flowers in my hair. The more fragrant the better. I’ll plant more this year, in the ground and in my hair. I promise.
Mami, sometimes I wish you’d come back.
But then I wouldn’t have this day – this day to say it’s the day you left your body.
I wouldn’t have the memory of your last breath. Or of dad, leaning over you, kissing you, stroking your hair, telling you his last words of love, passion, and caressing you in a way I’d never seen before. If you were here, maybe the love between the two of you would still be a hidden mystery.
I wouldn’t have walked those miles with your dust.
I wouldn’t have known that your you, is my me.
If you were here, I wouldn’t have you in the sky and in the sea. I wouldn’t have you in my lost blood.
You’d be locked in time.
Death defies time. It stops and stretches it.
That’s where I am.
Timeless, embracing time. Calling it to me. Saying yes. Stepping in.
I’m the fruit of your labor, laboring in my own field of flames.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank
You.