grieving_year past her birth marked the beginning of twelve months of loss, injury,and death in the family. a hard year made harder by the needy cries of the newest member, unable to understand the worlds being slowly shattered around her. unable to help, even in the fumbling ways of her older brother, whose attempts often made things worse. the tears of new life, rich and angry, bled seemlessly into the slow and anguished mourning tears as the growing family paused at its apex and shrank back. years later, this grief haunts her eyes as she plots her course through the world, always ready for the next hard turn that'll surely come her way and which she'll face with a fragile stoicness. 220328 ... past "she's held together with hot glue and hope," her mother whispered to no one in particular one day. "if only we held her more when she was a baby, but all the other kids needed us too and the days were always so short. she had to learn to carry herself so young." 220329 ... past each piece that falls off is soon replaced by a new found scrap. her face is a mosaic of injuries she can remember and traumas she cannot. as the cross traffic rushes through its count down, she pauses to look at the sun forcing its light through the thin grey clouds, making its presence known against the odds thrown its way. 220329 ... past it's a kind of pathetic fallacy to think that our lives are determined at birth. as if nature had that power. we do fall into paths, become dependent on patterns, and piece information into stories in our vain attempts to make sense of the messy multiple world. but. but it is easy to take comfort in even a cruel fate. could a birth year with more laughter have led to a different path? was luck locked in so early by a baby donning black and being soothed by mourners at too many funerals? did the smell of embalming oils imprint on her plastic brain, leading her to make choices that led her back to pained paths time and again? the fallacy remains, and she takes a deep breath, picks up the pieces (old and new) and begins each day again, as she moves past, and stays within the ruts of, that first grieving year. 220330 ... past each year the beginning of those horrible twelve months is marked by her family with a special meal. the losses that threatened to sunder them felt anew. she sits silent, in a well worn awkwardness of a grief she cannot feel, but that has so defined her entire life. she sits quiet, nodding along, eating that same favourite meal of her long dead brother she never knew. the same meal they eat year after year. she sits, and grief stirs. but not for those she lost before she could know them, but for the connection she wishes she felt with those family members she knows and loves. 221025 what's it to you? who go blather from