Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges
Simon played this little harp we made with gut strings on a bent ash root. From these hardened leftovers of life-things Simon made music and Brandell believed Simon had magical power. Maybe a two-year-old notices the “hole in the music” when someone is missing, and Simon’s ability to move his fingers in space could fill that emptiness with the song.
But it was Simon who named the emptiness the “hole in the music.” He said that to tell me he missed his older brothers and me in the singing at the church. He missed my harp those days so we made this harp for him to play.
But how can music have a hole? Music flows like a river, and when it isn’t flowing it isn’t music. How could there ever be a hole in a river? A fish swims up and touches the surface from beneath, and there is, for only a brief moment, a hole in the flow, but then it is gone and no one knows it was ever there. Maybe a heavy earth object, such as a rock, could crash through the surface and make a big hole with a splash all around sending out ripples in rings in ever-wider circles. And yet the rock only sinks to the bottom and the hole seems healed.
So now, a heavy rock has landed in the middle of the music. We are trying to navigate the rings of hurt moving out across the surface.
We should walk outside on this exceptional day and find the beautiful things Simon understood so well. I take Brandell by the hand, and in my other, Simon’s harp. Ana carries Layla in her arms, and Hannah watches out for her little brother Haberd, as always. This is who our family is now. It is Ana and I and these four tiny little children, and our thoughts of the oldest who are away. And here are two sons we remember in this quiet place we have made on our farm just for the grief part of life.
As we are all out here in this sacred place, our neighbors, the hunters, come walking. They are bringing the elders in a handcart and all the children are here, the young men with their bows, and the old men with their stories. Charlie has brought his whole wide family to share our grief with us.
It is good.
(Continues Tuesday, August 8)
Lazarus Ink 