Healing Beads

Healing

We thought our baby
-still rolling in my belly-
had spina bifida.
my friend brought healing bracelets,
from Target, not the likeliest place
for numinous cures, but
I still trusted the universe,
and wrapped the blue beads
around my wrist, worried, but sure,
knowing we would take care
of our little one.  

And then they told us
in a soft green ultrasound room
that it wasn’t spina bifida.
That he would not be able to live.
They had to tell me
So many times
because I could not
understand.

 Is there any chance? we asked.
Desperate. I held the beads.
No. None.  
They sadly shook their heads,
tissue boxes and gentle voices.
He kicked my side,
turned a flip,
and sucked his thumb
while my womb held him
and his heartbeat,
ba bum, ba bum, ba bum.

Our arms held him two weeks later
Stillborn, tiny, ours, gone
wrapped in a blanket
made from squares of flannel
and silk and childhood comfort
and dinosaur pajamas
he would never wear.

I didn’t wear the beads again,
A prayer unanswered, promise shattered
betrayed and blindsided
into brokenness.
but I kept them,
both loving and hating
their connection to that day
our lives changed.

It’s been seven years,
and today I pick the bracelet up
after the news, the worst news.
I defiantly put it on.
Another loss.
Different, but
An unfathomable loss.
A sharp, raw, overwhelming loss. 

All that time,
I didn’t wear the beads.
like death and its aching, unfair pain
would not be able to find us,
as though if hope
was hidden, we’d be safe.
My deal with the universe undone,
realizing there was never
a deal.
Blame in the winds.

I feel the line of marbled spheres
like tiny planets and prayers
strung on a skinny elastic string
that has found its way
to me.

And now
Maybe the beads can seep
through my skin
and remind me
that love is what binds us
Love is what saves us.

Healing isn’t what I thought
it was, seven years ago.

now, in the blue of the beads,
I carry Them with me.

and maybe that’s what it is
to heal.