it is true that in being made to look the grave, our mortality and loss, in the eye, we come to more profoundly savor the gifts in our life and have a deeper gratitude. Two weeks ago, my husband i buried our precious baby after a late first trimester miscarriage. Our baby was long awaited, after 6.5 years of infertility. The loss of our baby and the burial was and is devastating.
However, I can say that the “ethereal gain” has been profound...having dealt with infertility and faced the possibility of never having children, we cherished every minute we had with this baby and the miracle of this pregnancy. While burying our baby was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do, the burial also honored the preciousness and dignity of this little person gone to heaven too soon and brought to the fore the preciousness and dignity of each person and each child no matter how short their life.
That day also showed us the loving support of our families and this entire experience of loss and grief has brought my husband and I even closer together with an even deeper bond and strength in our marriage. In a sense we see God bringing beauty from ashes, grace and healing out of profound loss.
“Measuring the grave--then measuring the sun” I’m at a family reunion on a hill in Deerfield MA, not too far from Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst--and feeling the loss of so many family members, their presence like the sunlight pouring through the small round portal just above my bed, right now. Loss becomes light, graves into flowers, coffee, dogs and perfect pillows--ethereal gain well-measured! Thank you for this beautiful poem and prompt, and welcome home 🌺
So glad to read you’re home! I’m reminded of a time, 23 years ago now, when I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my neck. The doctor put me on OxyContin and I felt no pain for a year. But although the doctors didn’t understand this, I was physically dependent on the meds and not doing things that would’ve helped my chronic pain. I finally realized it on my own and decided to take my power back. I stopped cold turkey and for six weeks lay on my living room floor in agony. But finally it was over. I was left filled with joy. I wanted to grab strangers off the street and tell them, “I did it!”
Oh Suleika I’m so happy your back in your beautiful home. Safe and sound. Contemplating a divorce of my first marriage ending after 12 years. It was scary because being alone and being responsible for two young sons. At the time I had no power, nothing in my name--no bank accounts, credit cards, hadn’t worked in 6 years being a stay at home mum. So with the guidance of a therapist ( my husband wouldn’t go into therapy with me) she began guiding me how to take my power back. I had given it all away. It took two years, finding a place to live with my 2 sons, finding a part time job, getting credit cards and bank accounts in my name and dating other people to see what it was like after only being with my husband for 12 years. I must say at this particular women were not supported or encouraged to have power. After going through this experience I began to realize my resiliency, some of my gifts, and I could do this: create a better life for my 2 sons and myself. It took loads of courage and determination but I did it! Again Suleika, I’m so happy your home and getting well and stronger. Sending love to you and this community. Sometimes I’m strong, sometimes I fall apart, but through it all I know I’m very much alive and I honor my grief which comes and goes, because of the many losses thru my lifetime. Goddess bless you all.
Sweeping the garden, reminds me of a book by Thích Nhất Hạnh, I have not arrived, but I am doing it.This is difficult knowing my neighbor does not cultivate and the other intrudes making their statement ours. Sweeping helps--but it truly takes me time to appreciate- and not cultivate more disappointment.
Sulieka so great to read you are back home now. I have to say your words and blog are apart of the healing process I'm going though. In regards to the prompt I have to go back to last year with everything my daughter went through. I read about your experience and it's so similar to hers. It seemed to be after every stay at sick kids with all the medicine she was taking she always needed to spend sometime resting at home after then she'd rebound with energy like usual. The big change came when we both came down with COVID in August. That same energy bounceback never happened after getting home. Understandably so everyday is hit or miss in regards to how much energy she has. That's been the big transformation that has helped me appreciate those days when she does have that burst of energy. The days she doesn't have the energy I'm silently inside cussing COVID for showing up in our lives. Again you are a part of this healing process because most of these prompts help face these feelings head on and I'm thankful for that. I hope your health continues to get better.
Today I muddle through sorrow while saying goodbye, one more time, to my son who spent time here, his childhood home, for just a few short weeks. He leaves again, as he should, with confidence & joy. On the other side of this goodbye, today, I am solaced in knowing there may be an ‘ethereal gain’; or, at least, I have been gently nudged to seek it out. THANK YOU.
Three years ago, during Covid, I lost my husband of 46 years to cancer. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with no one beside me after a lifetime of my love beside me. Night after night, waking up to cold silent spaces and darkness. That was how my soul fell. Cold and dark. Then, one night , I got up, took a flashlight and went out in the night to sit at the patio table. I began to do this every night when I woke up and slowly I felt the darkness turn into a soft velvet robe around me, and the cold silence replaced by the sounds of the critters of the night- the owls,the coyotes,the neighbors cats, the barks of the dogs as mine snoozed by my feet. I began to live again. The darkness became my friend and brought me back to embracing life.
Suleika so happy you are home with your loves. I love your painting. And the Frida tote.
I had to think a bit on this prompt. I think finding the “ethereal” ‘may be different for everyone. I think there are little gifts that appear to all if us in our dark times. One came to mind immediately when you spoke of flowers. I won’t give all the details of this painful event. It’s something I still don’t say out loud after many many years. It was the loss of a beloved horse.he was my soul horse. I loved him like I never loved anything. He was beautiful in body and soul. And he loved me. When I drove to the barn he would bellow in greeting. He would follow me. He had the softest look of a gentle old soul. I lost him in an accident. That’s all I can say on that subject. It was very dark for me. Part of me went with him. The one little gift was a rose. When I bought my house it same with a bush of red roses. But out of nowhere a beautiful coral rose bloomed. I don’t know where it came from. That color never bloomed again. It was right after losing Signet (that was his name). Just for that brief time I felt the darkness lift.
There have been other gifts that have appeared after a loss. The fox that visited after my mother’s passing. The music box that played out if now where when I said goodbye to my Siamese cat, Happy. My dog Shadow’s lost name tag that seemed to glow in the sun, a few years after he passed. Last week a beautiful hummingbird moth enchanted me. Most of the gifts are from the natural world. I just try to keep my heart and send out love everyday and I find beauty and light everyday.
“When you’re there low to the ground, you get to marvel at the miracle of small things.” Good morning, Suleika! The practice you have of creating beauty and color in the bleakest of moments is lovely and empowering. On a practical note, wouldn’t it be great if we had backpacks of art supplies to give to each human looking out a window into the concrete jungle? Is there a way we could make this happen?
So excited about Jon’s new album too.
The poem by Emily is gorgeous. I’m always surprised by her perceptiveness and deep understanding of the human heart. The way she conveys the complexities of emotions is part miracle and part melody.
I’m familiar too of seeking technicolor moments amidst the dreary and the painful. I am in awe of your watercolors too as they feel like reflections of your soul. Imagine and reimagine everyday.
Oh, and the Magnolias are stunning: painted and real.
I’m so glad you are home, and how brave to distance yourself from pain meds. I can completely sympathize. I have been wrestling with lower back pain for nearly a year. I am trying to stretch, move, drink tart cherry juice, and avoid relying on Tylenol or Ibuprofen. My PT says, “Go ahead if you need one,” and her permission is comforting. But I feel determined to loosen up without meds.
Welcome home! Thank you for sharing your experience, your decision to stop pressing the pain med button. Taking your Chance with pain...and you proved the strongest! Love imagining you on your terrace discovering late season magnolia blossoms!! What a gorgeous gift of life. Digging your fingers into the soil of life and finding the heady aroma of magnolia blossoms in July. In these moments I smile and think of Anne Lamont writing God is such a show off! So irreverent. So true. Small gifts ground me in awe, wonder, and beauty beyond measure. Let all the small beautiful gifts build your strength pedal by pedal 🤍
Jul 30, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023Liked by Suleika Jaouad
Welcome home, darling girl. Welcome home to your life; to Jon, River, lattes, your terrace and magnolias. Sometimes we have to touch the bottom in order to push off and back up into life.
It’s the little mercies like dirt under the fingernails from tending to flowers, the smell of espresso brewing, that favorite pillow, and a hundred other tiny ethereal things that many folks might miss. I know you get it, and I’m glad you’re home. ♥️
Woke up in pain to this and must take as sign -- sight, serenity, a listing of, toward, away from physical pain. Thank you Suleika for this ethereal gain.
It’s a delight that you are home and to wake up to your reflection on my favorite poet this morning! I have a fine line tattoo on my left arm of daisies and the first line of another Dickinson poem in her handwriting.
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
That’s the ethereal gain I’ve found in loss, in sickness, during my time in chemo and in grieving. That certain slant of light. The internal difference and new meaning and filter on the world that only come from those winter places.
It’s often, for me, a reconnection with the very smallest things too. Like the garden. Emily’s world was so wide and rich, and for most of her life, not much bigger than the edges of her garden and her family’s property. It reminds me how many worlds there are in the dirt and earth of a little garden plot.
So glad to hear that you’re home and feeling a little better, I totally understand the euphoria mixed with a bit of exhaustion and confusion. Funny how flowers have so much power to ground us, to root us into the moment when we’re experiencing pain or illness. I’m in Ireland right now, admiring flowers with raindrops on the petals, bright colour amidst the green. Those moments are so meditative 🥰
Glad you’re safely home Suleika!
“Or that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave —“
it is true that in being made to look the grave, our mortality and loss, in the eye, we come to more profoundly savor the gifts in our life and have a deeper gratitude. Two weeks ago, my husband i buried our precious baby after a late first trimester miscarriage. Our baby was long awaited, after 6.5 years of infertility. The loss of our baby and the burial was and is devastating.
However, I can say that the “ethereal gain” has been profound...having dealt with infertility and faced the possibility of never having children, we cherished every minute we had with this baby and the miracle of this pregnancy. While burying our baby was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do, the burial also honored the preciousness and dignity of this little person gone to heaven too soon and brought to the fore the preciousness and dignity of each person and each child no matter how short their life.
That day also showed us the loving support of our families and this entire experience of loss and grief has brought my husband and I even closer together with an even deeper bond and strength in our marriage. In a sense we see God bringing beauty from ashes, grace and healing out of profound loss.
“Measuring the grave--then measuring the sun” I’m at a family reunion on a hill in Deerfield MA, not too far from Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst--and feeling the loss of so many family members, their presence like the sunlight pouring through the small round portal just above my bed, right now. Loss becomes light, graves into flowers, coffee, dogs and perfect pillows--ethereal gain well-measured! Thank you for this beautiful poem and prompt, and welcome home 🌺
So glad to read you’re home! I’m reminded of a time, 23 years ago now, when I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my neck. The doctor put me on OxyContin and I felt no pain for a year. But although the doctors didn’t understand this, I was physically dependent on the meds and not doing things that would’ve helped my chronic pain. I finally realized it on my own and decided to take my power back. I stopped cold turkey and for six weeks lay on my living room floor in agony. But finally it was over. I was left filled with joy. I wanted to grab strangers off the street and tell them, “I did it!”
Oh Suleika I’m so happy your back in your beautiful home. Safe and sound. Contemplating a divorce of my first marriage ending after 12 years. It was scary because being alone and being responsible for two young sons. At the time I had no power, nothing in my name--no bank accounts, credit cards, hadn’t worked in 6 years being a stay at home mum. So with the guidance of a therapist ( my husband wouldn’t go into therapy with me) she began guiding me how to take my power back. I had given it all away. It took two years, finding a place to live with my 2 sons, finding a part time job, getting credit cards and bank accounts in my name and dating other people to see what it was like after only being with my husband for 12 years. I must say at this particular women were not supported or encouraged to have power. After going through this experience I began to realize my resiliency, some of my gifts, and I could do this: create a better life for my 2 sons and myself. It took loads of courage and determination but I did it! Again Suleika, I’m so happy your home and getting well and stronger. Sending love to you and this community. Sometimes I’m strong, sometimes I fall apart, but through it all I know I’m very much alive and I honor my grief which comes and goes, because of the many losses thru my lifetime. Goddess bless you all.
Sweeping the garden, reminds me of a book by Thích Nhất Hạnh, I have not arrived, but I am doing it.This is difficult knowing my neighbor does not cultivate and the other intrudes making their statement ours. Sweeping helps--but it truly takes me time to appreciate- and not cultivate more disappointment.
Sulieka so great to read you are back home now. I have to say your words and blog are apart of the healing process I'm going though. In regards to the prompt I have to go back to last year with everything my daughter went through. I read about your experience and it's so similar to hers. It seemed to be after every stay at sick kids with all the medicine she was taking she always needed to spend sometime resting at home after then she'd rebound with energy like usual. The big change came when we both came down with COVID in August. That same energy bounceback never happened after getting home. Understandably so everyday is hit or miss in regards to how much energy she has. That's been the big transformation that has helped me appreciate those days when she does have that burst of energy. The days she doesn't have the energy I'm silently inside cussing COVID for showing up in our lives. Again you are a part of this healing process because most of these prompts help face these feelings head on and I'm thankful for that. I hope your health continues to get better.
Today I muddle through sorrow while saying goodbye, one more time, to my son who spent time here, his childhood home, for just a few short weeks. He leaves again, as he should, with confidence & joy. On the other side of this goodbye, today, I am solaced in knowing there may be an ‘ethereal gain’; or, at least, I have been gently nudged to seek it out. THANK YOU.
Three years ago, during Covid, I lost my husband of 46 years to cancer. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with no one beside me after a lifetime of my love beside me. Night after night, waking up to cold silent spaces and darkness. That was how my soul fell. Cold and dark. Then, one night , I got up, took a flashlight and went out in the night to sit at the patio table. I began to do this every night when I woke up and slowly I felt the darkness turn into a soft velvet robe around me, and the cold silence replaced by the sounds of the critters of the night- the owls,the coyotes,the neighbors cats, the barks of the dogs as mine snoozed by my feet. I began to live again. The darkness became my friend and brought me back to embracing life.
Suleika so happy you are home with your loves. I love your painting. And the Frida tote.
I had to think a bit on this prompt. I think finding the “ethereal” ‘may be different for everyone. I think there are little gifts that appear to all if us in our dark times. One came to mind immediately when you spoke of flowers. I won’t give all the details of this painful event. It’s something I still don’t say out loud after many many years. It was the loss of a beloved horse.he was my soul horse. I loved him like I never loved anything. He was beautiful in body and soul. And he loved me. When I drove to the barn he would bellow in greeting. He would follow me. He had the softest look of a gentle old soul. I lost him in an accident. That’s all I can say on that subject. It was very dark for me. Part of me went with him. The one little gift was a rose. When I bought my house it same with a bush of red roses. But out of nowhere a beautiful coral rose bloomed. I don’t know where it came from. That color never bloomed again. It was right after losing Signet (that was his name). Just for that brief time I felt the darkness lift.
There have been other gifts that have appeared after a loss. The fox that visited after my mother’s passing. The music box that played out if now where when I said goodbye to my Siamese cat, Happy. My dog Shadow’s lost name tag that seemed to glow in the sun, a few years after he passed. Last week a beautiful hummingbird moth enchanted me. Most of the gifts are from the natural world. I just try to keep my heart and send out love everyday and I find beauty and light everyday.
“When you’re there low to the ground, you get to marvel at the miracle of small things.” Good morning, Suleika! The practice you have of creating beauty and color in the bleakest of moments is lovely and empowering. On a practical note, wouldn’t it be great if we had backpacks of art supplies to give to each human looking out a window into the concrete jungle? Is there a way we could make this happen?
So excited about Jon’s new album too.
The poem by Emily is gorgeous. I’m always surprised by her perceptiveness and deep understanding of the human heart. The way she conveys the complexities of emotions is part miracle and part melody.
I’m familiar too of seeking technicolor moments amidst the dreary and the painful. I am in awe of your watercolors too as they feel like reflections of your soul. Imagine and reimagine everyday.
Oh, and the Magnolias are stunning: painted and real.
Enjoy the expresso and keep writing!
(I wrote a meditation on clouds this weekend).
https://open.substack.com/pub/constellationsinherbones/p/clouds-are-still-a-mystery-to-me?r=2jvyze&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I’m so glad you are home, and how brave to distance yourself from pain meds. I can completely sympathize. I have been wrestling with lower back pain for nearly a year. I am trying to stretch, move, drink tart cherry juice, and avoid relying on Tylenol or Ibuprofen. My PT says, “Go ahead if you need one,” and her permission is comforting. But I feel determined to loosen up without meds.
Welcome home! Thank you for sharing your experience, your decision to stop pressing the pain med button. Taking your Chance with pain...and you proved the strongest! Love imagining you on your terrace discovering late season magnolia blossoms!! What a gorgeous gift of life. Digging your fingers into the soil of life and finding the heady aroma of magnolia blossoms in July. In these moments I smile and think of Anne Lamont writing God is such a show off! So irreverent. So true. Small gifts ground me in awe, wonder, and beauty beyond measure. Let all the small beautiful gifts build your strength pedal by pedal 🤍
A 'blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain —
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.
Welcome home, darling girl. Welcome home to your life; to Jon, River, lattes, your terrace and magnolias. Sometimes we have to touch the bottom in order to push off and back up into life.
It’s the little mercies like dirt under the fingernails from tending to flowers, the smell of espresso brewing, that favorite pillow, and a hundred other tiny ethereal things that many folks might miss. I know you get it, and I’m glad you’re home. ♥️
Woke up in pain to this and must take as sign -- sight, serenity, a listing of, toward, away from physical pain. Thank you Suleika for this ethereal gain.
It’s a delight that you are home and to wake up to your reflection on my favorite poet this morning! I have a fine line tattoo on my left arm of daisies and the first line of another Dickinson poem in her handwriting.
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
That’s the ethereal gain I’ve found in loss, in sickness, during my time in chemo and in grieving. That certain slant of light. The internal difference and new meaning and filter on the world that only come from those winter places.
It’s often, for me, a reconnection with the very smallest things too. Like the garden. Emily’s world was so wide and rich, and for most of her life, not much bigger than the edges of her garden and her family’s property. It reminds me how many worlds there are in the dirt and earth of a little garden plot.
So glad to hear that you’re home and feeling a little better, I totally understand the euphoria mixed with a bit of exhaustion and confusion. Funny how flowers have so much power to ground us, to root us into the moment when we’re experiencing pain or illness. I’m in Ireland right now, admiring flowers with raindrops on the petals, bright colour amidst the green. Those moments are so meditative 🥰