Ramblings 1
We compartmentalize our lives.
Think kitchen counter.
Think glass, airtight, snap-shut containers on the kitchen counter.
Think flour, sugar, coffee, tea all separated into individual, bright,
yellow containers.
Now apply that to your life.
Your mother-in-law is coping with mortality. Renal failure. Congestive heart failure. But she doesn't want to hear anymore about your dead son. Enough grief, she says. You have to live now, she says. Even as she enters the doorway of death, she wants you to snap your grief shut into that cute yellow container marked "Sugar."
Your friends are sick to death of the way you can't get over this "mission" thing. Who cares if someone uses the word fetus, they say. What possible difference could it make for the state to call your dead son a child instead of a fetus, they say. Would you get over this death thing if they gave you a birth certificate rather than a fetal death certificate, they say. After three years, your friends are sick to death of having this mission shoved down their throats, and they want you to snap that preaching shut into the air tight jar marked "Coffee."
Even your writer friends have had enough. They begin to say things like, "Being angry when you tell your story doesn't work. Let's make this funny." Funny, you think. How do you make dead children funny, you wonder. Make it light and fluffy so the audience can "get it" instead of feel like you are yelling at them, they say. Put that anger into the big jar on the kitchen counter marked "Flour."
And at work, the academic on duty tells you that no one wants to deal with "lay people" like you. You might have a dead child, they say, but what credentials do you have? If there's no PhD listed on that fetal death certificate, then how can you expect anyone to take you seriously. The academics want you to shut up, lock those "lay people" ideas into the container marked "Tea" and go do your support work for them instead of brewing those crazy ideas you have about helping bereaved parents. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Compartmentalize.
Com - part - mental - ize.
Come - apart - mental - lies.
Bereaved parents come apart with all the mental lies told after the death
of a child.
Kara lives on Vashon Island which is a much more awesome place than she ever imagined it would be. She is a poet, bookmaker, wife, teacher, bereaved mom, facilitator, receptionist, founder, struggling p.t.barnum, turtle faithful, editor, artist, and a million other things that will prevent you from putting her in any one particular label box! Kara teaches through local art centers, artists in the schools programs, KotaPress and independently. To find out more about her, see:
http://www.KotaPress.com/kara/karajones.htm
And her class Expanding Poetry is now available in an online format from CourseBridge.com where you can register today at:
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