Monday, January 25, 2010

Shiloh Nights

In the hours where night blurs the lines of day, and the laws of physics and form are soft and pliable, I often float to you.

I call out and find you, elusive and ageless. The energy of your smile dazzles and carries me into a new place where you comfort me with your presence. You take the form I know, the soft downy boy’s body I crave and adore, you come back to spend some time with me and fill my heart with just enough, so I can keep going in the day, when you’ve gone.

This is my secret – our night meetings where I give you your favourite biscuits and watch the crumbs on your tiny lips. Where your laughter is pure sunshine and your voice is an angel’s. My angel.

Last night you were three. All the memories of you then, so little, came flooding back...
And though it was such a short visit, and you slept in another room, I needed you and you came. I held your tiny warm hand. I draw around your fingernails with my mind. The rough skin at the edge of each round nail, the soft pad of your palms. I breathed you in and held my breath. Though I dreamt a regular dream, somehow we both knew that you had come to help. That I needed your eyes, your skin, your little soul.

And days that hold a silence and a dull gray emptiness, I find myself alone in the car, your song will tease me from the radio, “I will go down with this ship, and I won’t put my hands up and surrendah” I hear your proud little voice singing along. But it is only a memory and the reality of day pierces my senses. Tears roll down my helpless face.



It is only our secret nights where ‘real’ is weak and love is stronger, that I am strengthened. Your power my boy, is bigger than I and this shallow world that you have left.

I love you like my baby and respect you far beyond. At once you are gone and yet you haven’t left me.

When my brave face laughs and I feel the happiness of love, the joy of good friends and good food and the tickle of a gentle breeze, you are the one I cling to inside.

I know in a way that only mystery can answer, that we have traded places. I took care of you here, I wiped your tears away and cuddled you at night, and now you take care of me – soothing my fears and cuddling me in that special place where night blurs the lines of day.
Thanks For Making This Possible! Kindly Bookmark and Share it.

Technorati Digg This Stumble Stumble Facebook Twitter

22 comments:

Miss Footloose said...

Oh, Holli, you make me cry!

Lothiriel said...

aaaww...I'm teary-eyed again. This is beautiful!

Jinksy said...

Very mysterious, beautiful writing, with alternative ways of interpreting exact scenario.

The pale observer said...

Thanks ladies - sorry to invoke tears!! Just felt such a strong connection with Shiloh, had to share...

Jinksy, sadly I lost my son at 6 years old - that was 4 and a half years ago now... I still see him in my dreams often

MissBuckle said...

Tears here as well. So glad that you get to meet him like that.

arshaddossa said...

This really made me heart sore!

dufmanno said...

I have a little boy of four and this just made me bawl. It also made me give him the biggest hug ever as I picked him up from preschool today. That was beautifully written.

Blunt Edges said...

touching...can't even begin 2 tell u how beautiful that was holli!

Unknown said...

I'm glad Shiloh's little soul revisits you. Beautifully written, Holy.

Andrea said...

Your experiences of the depths of grief, the boundless connections of spirit and love, the changing, twisting nature of comforter and beloved in relationships...Holli, you give voice to the great ripping hurts and tender healings that are part of so many human journeys. My heart aches with yours, my eyes spill over, and I praise the universe for this fiery wonder known as Shiloh who lit up your lives and who reaches across the mystical boundaries to shine on.

Expat From Hell said...

Thank you for putting something tangible on our collective grief "out there", Holli. Your sadness is ours. Such are the benefits of the blog world. Thanks for being there, and for saying what I can only feel today. You're a gift. EFH

Lisa Faye said...

I'm going home to hug my little one a little tighter. Thank you.

Nicola said...

That was so beautiful. I have just tried to read every post where you have mentioned Shiloh. My first born son died at birth, but I still identify in so many ways with your aching connection that only seems to grow stronger as the years pass by. My son died 7 years ago. Even writing that, the time span seems impossible. I only shared a day with him - again, that seems an unbelievable statement...was it really only a few hours? - yet I still long to mother him every single day. Thank you for writing such a hauntingly touching post.

A Good Moroccan said...

Delightful writing.

Amy E. Zimmer said...

Holli, your writing is exquisite, as is the depth of your sadness and your ability to share it so vividly.

We all come to experience of that role reversal with our parents. I held my mom's adolescent body as she was leaving us and felt the change over through the many years prior when her essence began to leave us.

I understand the secret switch as I kiss the top of my 15 year old's head and her scent is feeding more than my show of affection to her possibly could fill her.

Thank you for sharing so intimately with us,

Amy

Anonymous said...

It seems almost inappropriate to be grateful for this piece, but I am so lost for words right now, it's untrue.

So I will go with grateful and try to come up with something better for next time your writing affects me so. I doubt I have long to think.

Anonymous said...

Aunti Holli,
I just read this to my mom and we are both bawling, and we both love you.
Aunti Tessa

The pale observer said...

Tess!!! xoxoxo

Miss Buckle - i consider myself lucky and priveledged for that! :)

Arshad - sorry for the heart-sore!

dufmanno, Lisa - definitely hug your little one tight - it's such a blessing to have them near :)

be, Wendy, /andrea - thank you!

EFH - grief shared is definitely easier to handle :)

Nicola - I truly believe that once we have a child they stay with us - no matter how much time we physically spend with them :)

AGM - thanks for the lovely comment!

Amy - thanks - that was so eloquently put. Look forward to meeting up by the way!

Matthew - you are always so full of hearttfelt praise - thanks you so much. You inspire me to keep writing. I also love your writing - it is unique and introspective and touching always.

Land of shimp said...

Oh Holli, it's so easy to feel what you are feeling through your words here.

This will seem a strange thing to bring up, truly strange, so bear with me. We don't understand how time functions, I find myself referencing that a lot. Past theories are that time was very linear, starting point A, moving through to B, etc. But more recent theories have it that time does not have a linear structure. That in the scope of time and space, time is happening all at once.

I thought I'd bring that up because perhaps you are simply reaching through time, to find your boy, who exists right now, even if you can only find him occasionally in this perception of the here and now.

I like that "all at once, only our perception gives it linear definition" theory because it means that we are all of us, both lost and found at any given time...which means no one is ever truly lost.

I hope that was okay to say, because I do understand that the feeling of loss in our perception is very real, and very difficult. Yet it is a comfort to think that just beyond the haze of our understanding of reality, is the thing, the person we miss most, and that when we feel that person near? Perhaps that is reality, too.

Anonymous said...

Genial brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you on your information.

Anonymous said...

Brim over I to but I about the list inform should acquire more info then it has.

Sherrie Petersen said...

Hauntingly lovely.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Say something! Ramble a bit...

Visitor counter from June 5th, 2008


website counter
Writing Community