Sometimes there is no comfort
In this strange, unsettled place…
Nothing makes it better.

So un-comfortable, these odd,
Unnamable feelings that have
No sense, no mooring,
No path to trace.

Until I notice:

This is physical grief
Rising up from my cells.
My body remembers,
Flashing impressions of when my
Mother’s comfort was the
Only thing that mattered,
The only real thing of value in the world.

As a baby,
A five year old child,
She holds me, comforts me,
Loves me.

These tender memory deposits
Break open and gush from my cells,
Weeping at her impending passing.

I cry with a child’s despair,
As though my
Only comfort in the world
Is going away.

This in itself is wondrous,
That I could experience the
Eclipsing sway of such a
Time capsule of grief,
As though the
Singularity of her place
Is still true.

For there are other, equally
Powerful realities now.

Comfort is always with me.
Unconditional presence hums
“I love you, I love you, I love you”
With each breath and pulse,

This indwelling Love is constant,
True, irrevocable.
It is no more dependent on her
Than it is on me, or any other.
It simply Is.

And still my cells remember differently:

No one else will ever
Love me as my mother has.
No one else will be the one who
Held me when hers was the
Only comfort.

She alone in this life.

So I cry, while marveling that
My body could gift me with such
A retrograde of grief.

What a miracle, this pain that
Cannot be assuaged except
By being,
However often and however
Long it takes.

© Christine Laria 2022

photo: taken of the print above the bed where I’m sleeping, artist unkown