the psychologist at my local cancer hospital all giant
black frames gravitas +Morticia Addams talked to me
about anticipatory grief it’s a thing
the only person for whom it was a foreign concept was
a geriatric psychiatrist at a retirement rez i frequented
she was in serious denial
many of her patients would be dead within 8-10 days
give or take when i told her about my pre-grief for my
98 yr. old mother fading fabulous +acerbic to the max
the doc said: don’t kill her off so fast i guess she failed
compassion at shrink school 5 months later mother
walked through the valley of the shadow of death
perhaps it was the doc’s revenge for mother telling her
you don’t take a good picture! to which she replied i
don’t get paid for my looks
clearly
i hear
mother
chide
so how are you supposed to know what death feels like?
a dying friend asked well by every deathbed you’ve ever
sat at by every witnessing of medical science in action
torturing/healing
torturing/healing
you’re people
in the end so reluctant to let them go you have to beg
borrow +steal the hemlock but really it’s pretty simple
befriend the dualities
hold terror in one hand +hope in the other and learn
to juggle with aplomb without shitting oneself without
scaring the shit out of the dying one
whose red shoes
have recently
been spotted on
the feet of angels
__
We heal and test our heart’s resilience by lingering within
the unbearable. We find our hearts much stronger than
we presumed, and what we thought unbearable to be
nothing of the sort.. (Nick Cave The Red Hand File 2024)
Winter 2024 ..one day i heard persistent childcries ..croak+nervepierce..
songanddancegirl 