I've spent this morning at Centrelink submitting an application for our 'bereavement payment'. Nothing like a trip to Centrelink to remind you how well off you are, and how many resources you have. Apparently having a bereavement payment form (which I think you only get from the death of a child) entitles you to jump the queue, because I was seen quickly despite the waiting area being full. Perks, huh. I was skimming through old emails today to delete some of the 350 in my inbox, and I re-read my new year's letter. I thought "Who the fuck was she? Good on her for being so happy, but who is she?" To me my new year's letter doesn't read as positive, it reads smug and naive. If I met that version of me now I think I'd slap her on the face and tell her to wake up.
And so begins my Holy Week, with Palm Sunday yesterday and the rest of the Holy Week hoo har to come over the next 6 days. This has been a different sort of Lent for me. For a start I skipped Ash Wednesday. Having had Salome's funeral the preceding Friday, I didn't need someone rubbing ashes on my forehead to remind me of the fragility of life, my own smallness and lack of power, the inevitable nature of suffering etc etc. Matt and I started Lent about 2 weeks earlier than most people on the day of Salome's birth.
Secondly, I have been living the triduum in the wrong order every week. Every Wednesday I am aware of one more week passing since Salome's birth, and every Saturday I am very aware of another week passing since Salome's death. It's arse-about: rather than meditating on death to new life (Good Friday to Sunday), I have an unavoidable 3 day meditation of birth to death.
Thirdly, the seat I have always sat in at church is closest to the Station of the Cross pictured above, which is 'Station 4: Jesus meets his mother'. That's the station I feel I am living at the moment, because it portrays the anguish of a mother who is watching her child suffer and die and there is nothing she can do about it. I still wonder who suffered more on that day, Jesus or Mary? A sting in the tail for me is that in the image above there are women comforting Mary and one of the women who stood by Mary on the day of Crucifixion was 'Salome' (Mk 15.40).
So where is my Salome? Is she comforting me? I don't feel her anywhere. I just feel her absence in that terrible baby-shaped hole in my life. What does this image mean to me? That God is in the ones who suffer and the ones left behind, and God offers support even as he takes my child away? (God is always a 'he' to me when I am angry with him). Why would I accept that sort of support? Theological conundrums don't do anything for me these days. All I know is my precious baby is dead, and she's not rising from the tomb on Sunday. She's gone forever. Seems to me there is no meaningful victory over the tomb. What good is it to me that someone else's child allegedly rose from the dead 2000 years ago? Alright for some, not alright for me. If this is God's idea of growth through paradox, he can shove it.
Soundtrack to how I am feeling about Salome includes 'End of the Road' by Boyz to Men. Sing it with me: "Although we've come to the eeeeend of the road, still I caaaaain't let go. It's unatural. You belong to me. I belong to you."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7aBGh9tJWg
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