The Hours of Innocence and Ignorance

Tapping on keys, missing the way writing allowed thoughts to coalesce, missing how writing informed my conscious mind what was stirring in the deeper levels. Missing how writing gave me words for living with grief, forgetting that sitting to write is not a waste of time, writing is work. Realizing this year, that it doesn’t matter if no one else reads my work, sharing is a delightful afterglow, but it is not part of the work. The work is butt in chair, taking my heart and turning it inside out, the work is shaking my soul upside down to see what has loosened, what is free, the work is about movement. Movement is about freedom and fluidity, the work is flexibility to let go what no longer fits.

Justin died thirteen years ago yesterday, September 27. Waking in the middle of the night, I think, was this when his car swerved, was this hour when his vehicle rolled into the pond? Was where he hit his head enough to knock him unconscious? He had a massive bruise from the seat belt shoulder strap. He drowned. Upside down. No answers, the living are left with the task of living with no answers.

The hours before noon on that day are the hours of innocence. Noon is when the police officer came to our door. Walking with the dogs along the rocky bank of the Shenandoah River, remembering those hours of blissful ignorance of child loss, I feel my heart rate kick up when it is 12:10, no longer innocent or ignorant.

We keep walking to where sun warmed, flat rocks extend out into the Shenandoah, we sit and watch a Blue Heron. Elegant, serene, he stands profile to us, ignoring the dogs. To their credit, the dogs are quiet, tongues out, grateful for the respite on rocks. Sinking my hand into soft black fur, I feel peace, the dogs like the rocks under us, ground us, liquid brown eyes looking up anchor us in the present moment.

Walking soft trails, we are quiet, each in our own place of memories. I push away the guilt of not visiting Justin’s grave, I see it in my mind’s eye. I think about going, but I feel like a trespasser on that holy ground. I would go if I could take Loki, our new rescue, but I wonder if it is appropriate, some would look askance at a dog in a cemetery, and I get it. He is my grounding element though, my little house wolf.

Walking through the dappled light, I recognize what the heavy spot is under my heart, both heavy and empty, it is grief. The weight of loss, the emptiness of absence. It is longing, it is cold, it is a burning, it is grief. It is my strength, for without it, I would live in ignorance and innocence.

Falling shadows tell us it is time to head home. We step through the arch of the thirteenth year, Justin has been dead for as half long as he was alive. Born the week of the spring equinox, dying the week of the autumn equinox, he was twenty-five and half to the day. Roadwork sends us home by way of wandering country roads. The dogs curl in the backseat, their black fur makes it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.Arriving safely home, we greet the glorious ordinary things of life, the big dog threw up the minute we got her out of the car, mail needs to be brought in and sorted, dishes spill over the sink onto the counter. The hand washing is calling my name.

Night falls and the garden lights twinkle and glow, lighting my steps as I take the puppy out before bedtime. The near full moon hangs low in the sky, my tears run, the beauty of the ordinary in the present moment halts my steps, and the ache for a boy with wild dark curls breaks my heart.