Niobe

I am Niobe, Mother of Eternal Mourning. There is perhaps nothing more devastating than losing a child, whether to death or disease or just pure circumstance. Some of us have held our babies as they took their last breath, some of us have experienced extreme exhaustion after months or years with minimal sleep while we nurture our sick children, and some of us just stopped getting phone calls one day, our children forever lost to us, an overwhelming mystery.

All of us have had to mourn the lost hopes and dreams we had for our children, for ourselves. Our futures will never be what we originally imagined, our present reality tinged with guilt, depression, isolation, and a feeling that we are victims of a cruel universe. How, how, how could this have happened?

And why??

Eons ago, unable to heal, I turned to stone, and even today my endless tears form a stream down my face. If you are a mother in mourning, then likely a portion of your heart feels like it has turned to stone, and your tears wet your pillow at night. I can only observe and share with you that from my own stream of tears has sprung an abundance of grass and flowers, visited by butterflies and birds, and occasionally, children.

From my tears, life has sprung. So too might it be for you.