I’m beginning to learn
What happens
In the losing
I count my losses like prayer beads
Caressing my fingers over each one tenderly
Food came first
One after another slipped away
Movement followed
Until I was not so slowly losing my ability to walk
They came in avalanches
Losing my ability to function at all
Living in a quickly fragmenting reality that faded
Into pure terror
Losing my children who then appeared to me as aliens, as monsters
To my broken mind
Losing relationships
The ability to sleep
To speak
Read
To wash a dish
Or chop an onion
To sweep the floor
Or fold laundry
To drive a car
Listen to music with words
Even nature and beauty, my oldest loves
Terrified my brain for a time
Everything I loved dearly I lost to fear
And as I have slowly pieced myself together with love
I find what I have gained
An ineffable patience
Always laughing at people who think they are an inconvenience
They don’t even know what that is
Kindness
That will never run out
The pleasure it brings in giving it out
Only grows
The ability to treasure
The tiniest moment of peace
In the storms that still rage within
From time to time
To feel okay beneath heaving grief
Broken dreams
Horrifying realizations
To know I’ll be okay
When the corridors of the unknown
Stretch on for years
I now treasure
An easy stroll from one room
To the next
Waking up happy
I can relish the taste of food
For the first time ever
I find deep nourishment
In the ability to discipline my children
To simply witness them
And know that somehow
By the grace of God
These little moments
Of love
Wonder
Joy
And pleasure
Are always enough
I’m so grateful to know that what is given
Is often first taken
Grateful for this eucharist
That falls from trembling lips
And a broken heart
“thank you”
For the soft nothingness that remains
When I’ve lost
The Eye of the Needle 