April Come She Will*
My Grandmother Sonia and Me
Tillie.
Sonia.
Rifka.
Nachama.
My mother.
My grandmother.
My grandmother’s
Mother.
And
My
Great-great
Grandmother.
My litany.
My legacy.
My roots,
Connecting me
To these
Strong,
Strong
Women.
How blessed am I
To have
These woman
Tethering me
Into myself
And
Into them.
Their lives were hard ones.
The two I knew intimately,
My mom and my Gram,
Lived with much loss,
Much grief.
My Gram Sonia—
Coming to the US
From Odessa at 16,
“On a lark”, in her words,
Having no sense of the
Permanency,
The irreversibility
Of her casual choice.
Never seeing her mother again.
Never seeing her home again.
Living in a totally different
And harsh world
And living in it alone.
Decades later,
Watching her husband
Die before her eyes
In a tragic car accident.
Living without him for
Several more long,
Lonely decades.
My Gram Sonia—
She knew of grief.
She lived a life,
In her words,
“Of heartbreak
Oye, heartbreak
After heartbreak.”
My Mom Tillie—
Strong woman,
Carried our family,
Carried my dad,
Sick his entire life
Protected him,
Cared for him,
Worked in the
Grocery story
Six days a week
Next to him.
My Mom Tillie—
She knew of surrender.
Rifka and Nachama.
Jewish women
In Czarist Russia.
Not a spacious life,
I am sure,
Without multiple choices,
Like mine.
The four of them,
My forewomen,
The four of them,
My inheritance.
Each of them
Lived into
Their grief
To create beauty.
Each of them
Lived into
Their losses
To love
And be
Loved.
~~~
When I get scared these nights
Around 2:45 a.m.-ish,
(Is there a 2:45 a,m,-ish subgroup here?)
With no doorway back to
The oblivion
Of sleep,
I remember
Them.
I call on them.
Tillie.
Sonia.
Rifka.
Nachama.
If you did it,
If you lived with
Such uncertainty.
If you lived with
Such loss,
Surely I can, too.
Surely I can
Grow old,
Staring into
The eyes
Of impermanence,
In this shifting,
Swaying
World of ours.
Surely I can
Live and watch
Restrictions,
Constrictions
Tightening
Around us.
If you could do it,
So
Can
I.
~~~
These people who came before us.
The survivors of their life struggles,
They are there for us,
I do believe.
I choose to believe.
They are an energetic reminder
Of what is possible.
Friends,
Who in your ancestry,
Who do you look to,
Who might you look to,
Who do you remember—
A look,
A word,
A kindness,
A strength,
To carry you onward?
~~~
And now, music.
Oh! This beautiful, poignant tiny little song, oh!
I played it compulsively this week,
Held by its brilliant and simple guitar,
Held by its quiet depth.
It opened my heart.
And, April Come She Will!
This week, right?
Now, right?
April.
Our spring is opening
Her arms to us.
~~~
*Lyrics and Music by Paul Simon
April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I remember
A love once new has now grown old
~~~
Dear Friends,
It all comes.
It all goes.
Days flow into weeks,
Weeks into months,
Months into seasons.
Seasons, they melt into years.
Memories blur into dreams,
Dreams into
Darkness.
Darkness
Flows
Back
Into
Light.
It all comes.
It all goes.
Oh, my dear foremothers,
You who have given me so much,
Your resilience is my inheritance.
I ask you to carry me through.
~~~
Dear Friends,
Let’s request
Gratitude, that we might
See our gifts.
Patience, that we might
Continue practicing.
And courage,
That we might
Keep showing up.
As best we can. With kindness.
May all beings be blessed by our time shared together.
Stay blessed,
Aruni