I took my nineteen year old daughter to get a tattoo tonight. A pretty involved tattoo. Which meant a lot of pain. She was incredibly stoic about it, and as I watched, I saw the little three-year-old she had once been. She always hid her pain, even then. She once got her finger pinched in a folding door, and instead of coming to get me, crying, she just hid in the closet until it stopped hurting. (I found her just a few minutes after it happened - opened the door to get something and there she was, cradling her hurt hand...)
Watching her, remembering, got me thinking about pain. We all respond to pain - physically and otherwise - so differently. Like my daughter, I'm good at hiding mine. I'm not outwardly emotional. But I feel, and I know she does too. Deeply.
Her father and I divorced ... it's been ten years since then. We've been apart now longer than we were together. At the time, the pain was so great I thought I couldn't bear it. When the rift and wound was fresh, driving down familiar streets, past places we lived together, was incredibly painful. I drove through some of them tonight and realized... my pain has ebbed. In fact, what I experience now isn't pain so much as it is sadness, some nostalgia, and a little regret.
It's faded over time. As I watched colors bloom on my daughter's skin...a back I soaped and rinsed 1,000 times in her life...I realized that the bright pain I still feel over William's death would disappear like that. Like my daughter's tattoo...colors would bleed and fade and slowly disappear, leaving the ghost-image of what it once had been.
Some day I really will look back and remember William differently. I felt that tonight, watching my oldest daughter bear her own pain and wondering what life had in store for her. At nineteen, I had yet to experience my greatest pain. Today, at thirty-nine, I'm not sure I have yet. But I have had my share. The longer we're here, it seems, the more life gives us. Our souls, like tattooed bodies, blooming bright, colorful pain that burns and slowly heals over time until it fades into the outline of our memory. Still there, always there, but never quite the same.
No, we are never quite the same again.
8 comments:
So beautifully written.
Hugs
Kimmie
Beautiful post. Thanks for sharing a little of your Mothering with us, the peek was gorgeous. Hugging you
((Hugs)). I really like the analogy of tattoos as a pain that you carry with you - yes, you've had your share, like tattoos on the inside. I know the feeling.
Lachlan's death was the first dose of 'real pain' I've had in my life. It certainly opened my eyes to the amount of pain that everyone out there goes through. It sucks. It hurts so much. But you're right, the pain is evolving already. I hope that one day it doesn't hurt in quite the same way anymore.
Youre right, no we arent ever the same again. This post was beautiful. I especially liked the line; Our souls, like tattooed bodies, blooming bright, colorful pain that burns and slowly heals over time until it fades into the outline of our memory. Still there, always there, but never quite the same. Very touching and so true.
No never...
Wow, so beautifully written!!! You know I don't know this pain. Though knowing so many mamas who travel this path, reading the depths of their emotions, I too will never be the same. Different from you, but not as I was. ((hugs)) always,
Beautiful. I read this, sat with it a moment, and then found myself in tears. I think this gave me permission to feel the pain that I, too, tend to hide, but also gave me hope for the future.
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