Only twice in my life have I met someone like you. Twice, I foolishly thought I might be able to provide some kind of comfort or peace. Twice, I was reminded that I am still but a child: powerless, lost, and afraid. Twice, I was guided back by you.
Speaking to someone experiencing profound sorrow begets self-reflection. It evokes the same kind of defamiliarization of a painting, wherein every facial expression one can see the cold glimmer of pain. Suffering may be transient for me, fleeting, but for you, suffering and reality are one and the same. There is no distinction.
I remember when I felt that way too, but it was a friend I lost and not a child. The difference is something I cannot even fathom.
Listening to you speak about them, the sorrow in your eyes betraying the warmth of your smile, I began to understand that your pain came not from regret, but the opposite. You would do it all again, even knowing the outcome; a frightening thought, so you said, and yet that is what it means to be a parent, isn’t it?
And so you smile at me as you speak, and I realize that the sorrow in your eyes does not betray that warmth—it augments it. It is not like the sun, as one might think; it is the luster of silvery metal, or cold beams of moonlight, fleeting and refulgent.
April 1, 2021
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