The Sun Also Rises

I wish I could have been here this morning before sunrise.

I'm not Jewish. I'm not anything, really. Spiritual more than religious. I guess I'm really just a spiritual mutt.

But meaningful religious ritual is often moving to me, and on this day, I could have sat for hours by the wailing wall with the believers, honoring the sun returning to its position at the moment the universe was created, according to the Hebrew faith, 5,769 years ago.

It returns to that position only once every twenty-eight years.

Today, I could have used that conscious reminder. M. opened the curtains this morning for the first time in a week. I was surprised to see it - the sun's up. It's still shining. There really is still light in the world. Tomorrow, there will be a full moon pulling the tides and it won't be the last. The cycles continue, the world keeps moving, round and round.

Of course I wish my William could have seen the sun come up today... and twenty-eight years from today... and twenty-eight years after that. At least twenty-eight years after I was gone from here. I wish his place in the cycle had been longer, that his time spent here in this world had been more than the short life he had in my womb.

But I can't stop the sun from shining like a grieving Demeter, freezing everything in my mourning shroud. My body reminds me... my milk is drying up. My bleeding is slowing. My uterus contracts, slowly pulled back to its previous size. I am part of this cycle, turning on my own axis as our planet spins, and it moves around the sun, and the world goes on...

And in my heart, I know... it's all sacred and worth honoring, every moment, not just this year, one in twenty-eight. Every moment, every second, every precious breath.

I'm wishing for a wailing wall today, a solid place to settle, a touchstone, a cool place to rest the hot, wet press of my cheek and mourn this unbelievably painful, bittersweet journey of being human.