Hands

Evening falling – 
A soft lamenting
sounds in the bird calls
I have summoned.
Greyish walls
tumble down.
My own hands
find themselves again.
What I have loved
I cannot hold.
What lies around me
I cannot leave
Everything declines
while darkness rises.
Nothing overcomes me –
This must be life’s way
-“Weariness” by Hannah Arendt

This led me to thinking about what I have wrapped my hands around in my life.  “What I have loved, I cannot hold” was such an unfamiliar concept for me, but one I have had to learn to accept over the past six months.  I was used to grabbing hold of the things that I wanted.  Letting my hands “find themselves again” is an enormous challenge.

My hands have always been steady.  I am decisive, unflinching.  I knew what my college major should be, I married at 22 years old, I knew the career path that I wanted.  I knew that children were going to be a natural extension of our lives at some point.  I am unapologetic in my confidence as a parent.

I have always felt fortunate.  “Lucky” does not seem like the right word, because it implies that it was random and I had nothing to do with it.  “Fortunate” seems to somehow emulate a combination of luck, opportunity, and drive.

To borrow from Ragtime’s “Back to Before”:

There was a time our happiness seemed never-ending
I was so sure that where we were heading was right
Life was a road, so certain and straight and unbending
Our little road with never a crossroad in sight

Losing two babies has thrown my steady hand off course.

I have always desired control and I am out of control.  I am usually strong and I feel weak.  Being overpowered by grief makes me feel weak, even though my head knows that it shouldn’t.  Being apathetic and lost makes me feel weak.  I lack control and I fear the unknown.

My hands, my head, my heart – all feel foreign to me.

My hands tremble at the uncertainty  My hands have not yet found themselves again.  I am grasping for steadiness and find that it keeps moving away from me.