When the words aren't. . . .

[kiya]

I don't think this is going to get long, but I'm going to put it behind a cut anyway. wiredferret, I'd sort of appreciate it if you'd get silmarian to read it before you do; I'm probably being really excessively twitchy about this, but I don't feel confident about being able to say what set off this set of thoughts in a way that mightn't mutate weirdly in your stress levels, and I figure he can figure out what, if anything, needs to be said for appropriate mental bufferage. Um. Thing.

We now pause this broadcast to make awkward hand gestures and shuffle our feet.

I can't really say I know her, though we post to the same newsgroup. But that's how the sentence goes: this person I know had a miscarriage. I haven't really said anything to her about it directly, because I don't know what to say; what can one say to it at all? I wind up caught in a place where the words just strangle.

I made a comment about having five gallons or so of cider mead in my kitchen. She made a comment about wishing she could be in my kitchen; that hard cider is good, and mead is good, and so cider mead sounds pretty spiffy.

She lives probably a forty minute drive from me.

I don't have anything to say. But I'm going to give her a bottle.

I said the universe owed her some gratuitous pleasantness, and I was willing to do my part to bring that about. She said she liked that idea.

My father told me once about a bit of philosophy; I don't know how mainstream it is within Judaism (whence he got it), or whether there was something lost in translation, but I like it. It's the idea that when the world was made, little bits of the goodness of the divine were trapped in little pockets, kept out of the world in some way. And doing little things, performing mitzvah (definition two; a worthy deed, as opposed to a fulfillment of the law), that opens up some of those little pockets and lets the goodness out.

I still don't have anything to say.

Unless giving her a bottle of cider mead is saying something.

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I think giving her a bottle of cider mead is definitely saying something, and something good, too. Well, communicating something, anyhow. Indicating?

(And having beloved friends who had miscarriages, I am really glad people are doing caring things for her. I haven't been on most newsgroups lately, so I hope that if it's somebody I know personally, somebody lets me know so I can send an email hug or something. My friend Hillel wrote a tremendously moving piece about miscarriage and fatherhood, and I'm pretty sure I know what he'd think about the cider mead thing, and yeah, it sure sounds like mitzvah to me too. And I point some good thoughts out into the everywhere, for anyone dealing with loss of this kind: may they have gentleness and pleasure and companionable silence and noise when they want it, may there be expressions of care and good will from others in ways that work well for all concerned, and may the grieving be good and the loving be remembered always.)