Tears of the Mother

The death of a young person is such a tragedy. My children (thank the goddess) are safe right now but so many are not. It was heart wrenching to hear Amy Winehouse's father say good night to his angel daughter. In the heart of a parent, whatever the child does in life, we remember the purity of our child's soul and the gifts they have to offer the world. I listened to that amazing voice of hers over and over during the weeks following her death and cried.
Besides being flooded with images of children starving and suffering in Somalia, I have been watching a dear friend being confronted with suicide attempts of her grown daughter. Her anguish and desperation are terrible to see. All I can do is offer her shelter. And most recently, I received the news that a childhood friend of mine had lost her oldest son. No mother wants to imagine this and yet in our darkest hours we do. I was immersed in sadness and robbed of words of comfort. How could there be any comfort left in the world when your child dies?

I took my sadness into the studio. This allowed me to spend some quiet days being with all my feelings and memories. I started with printing onto fabric a photo I have of the moon above a white lotus.

The darkness was rich and the light luminous. As it seems to always happen, the shapes, fabrics, stitching all made themselves known as I went along. It was finished and photographed and I was still wondering what to call it. The tear drop shape comes back in the stitching and the moon appears to be crying. I think that when ever a child dies, every mother, the moon and the earth cry. The tears water the lotus of compassion in the heart. Tears of the Mother.

It had been storming, thundering and pouring rain. As I was sewing the last inch of the label on the back, it was suddenly quiet. I looked up to see this magical scene.

This is how it is to move through the storm of grief.