Superpowers

I find my heart in the closet looking through my clothes.

“Where’s the cape?” She asks. “The one with the big S for Supergirl.”

“At the cleaners,” I say.

“And the tiara?”

I choose my words carefully because I’m pissed. “Don’t you remember? You gave it away to the first little girl who admired it. Those were real diamonds.”

She pouts. “Are you going to yell at me again for being generous?”

I soften. “No. Sorry. I’m not. Carry on. Be stupid generous.”

“What else you got in here?” she asks

“How about wings?”

“Perfect” she says, and slips them on. “Let’s go outside.”

“It’s cold,” I object.

“Of course it’s cold,” she says. “But honey…the stars.”

We settle on two rocking chairs on the front porch. The dark is radiant, like the ringing of a crystal bowl.  

“That’s better,” she says, settling down, folding her wings. “Now we can really see what’s out there.” I peer into the night and the stars are falling into each other’s arms, night birds are calling.

“Look,” she says.

And then I see the beloveds I have lost and still miss: parents, sibling, cousins, friends. The dying I tended in my hospice work all those long years.

“I don’t want to see,” I protest. “It hurts too much.”

She takes my hands away from my eyes.

“All this yearning for Supergirl superpowers,” she says. “Do you think it means blasting the patriarchy with a laser? Do you want to be made of steel so that you forget how to bend or how to weep?

 “Try to see what I see,” she says, pointing down and down through the fatal diseases, the disappointments, lost dreams, the fragile loneliness. “I see myself in their sorrow, in their longing for love, their grasping for life. Our hearts beat together ba boom ba boom ba boom until theirs stopped and mine went on.”

She gestures for me to lean in close. “All of their suffering, their love for their families, that’s still beating inside me. Grief is love that’s looking for a home and if we’re that home, we’re made bigger and stronger by it.

 “It’s not always easy,” she says. “Grief knocks on your door when dinner is ready. The phone  rings when you’re tired. You want to let it ring, draw the blinds, hide in shadow. You say it’s too much. I can’t. I don’t have enough left to give. But it’s how I’ve grown strong,” she says, flexing her wings.  “By letting my heart break. By not turning away from the grief of others. And if we’re patient, it’s how grace enters, rising up from the core of the wound, filling us both with love.”

“It’s not exactly a superpower,” she says. “It’s more like a mini-power, a teeny tiny power that’s so small it can travel through the bloodstream, see through another’s eyes. It’s the willingness to listen deeply, feel the sorrow of another and share their grief. It’s knowing that from the far reaches of  darkness grief travels with joy”

And then my sorrow lifts. The crow comes and says thank you for the bread, and right under fallen leaves the snapdragon still blooms.

 My heart stands and stretches, unfolding her wings. “Come dance with me world, let’s meet in the middle. Share our tears and our laughter. I know just the place, where spirit meets bone.”

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You can read more stories like this in my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging available on Amazon.