Real Lies in the External
What is external is what is real.
It had been a week since I had stopped to reflect on our miscarriage. It factors without factoring. It is a present pressure without any of the compounded crushing. You learn to acknowledge without collapsing.
Click to listen while reading
Until I began to redesign the website that is. I was wandering around from click to click inspecting the product. Disdain for "this and that" required multiple deep dives into the nooks and crannies of the site. And then I stumbled upon my wife's post. My eyes welled as I read the first few sentence and fully connected the dots. I had forgotten the title of my wife's post and experienced reading those words for the first time — again.
It seems silly. I can sit here writing this without the same experience. The words are again internalized. My thoughts are contained to my consciousness. But even the slightest reflection of sharing the information makes me cry. The external nature of those events, the reality of experiencing those truths outside of myself is different.
I have written about this phenomena a couple times now (Example 1 & Example 2). That which is external to us has a different impact on our psyche. Experiencing something externally brings it to a different layer of reality. To see, to say, or to hear causes the experience to be substantially changed — we would label this the importance of aesthetics. In this case and situation, the only external phenomena I have is a dull pain. There is no future comfort or joy. All of these thoughts led me to recall the ending of Alaina's post,
To the darling one that I will love for the rest of my days: I never heard your heart beat, but I cherish you with all of my beating heart. My eyes will never see your form, but I know it was fearfully and wonderfully made. I will not cuddle you through the cold winter months, a newborn babe in my arms, as I had been awaiting. You will not add your cries for comfort, shrieks of joy, or squeals of laughter to the pandemonium that is our household, and your absence will resonate in that quiet. I will miss you. I do miss you.
Pain is the only external experience we will have with our child. Pain in this instance doesn't seem so bad. As Karl Barth said speaking of Mozart, "No laughter without tears, no weeping without laughter!" (Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). All of these pieces came crashing down while listening to Jon Bryant's "Wilderness." In a moment of Postmodern rendering of song lyrics, the words of Bryant's "Wilderness" go out as words I will never be able to sing to our lost child — none of this will be actualized.
Yet still, today the pain is good. This post is not one of lament and sadness. Pain has turned to joy. Yearning for a lost child materializes the lost life in front of my closed eyes. As Barth said, "Joy overtakes sorrow without extinguishing it" (Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Yes, today the pain is good.
Oh the moment that
my eyes fell on you
I asked my heart to stop
giving in too soon.
Oh the moment that
I first heard your voice
It was the perfect pitch
In a world of noise.
Stay with me tonight
let your senses lose this fight
In the open wilderness of love.
Let me show you how
you should never be without.
So lay your weary hand on mine
and I'll show you who this heart beats for.
Oh the moment that
You first graced my hand
Oh I felt the tides
push my heart to land.
So stay with me tonight
let your senses lose this fight
In the open wilderness of love.
Let me show you how
you should never be without
So lay your weary hand on mine
and I'll show you who this heart beats for
Oh the moment that
you let me kiss your face
You burned in my soul
never to replace
