I've written before how much I love the poetry that resonates deeply within Jen Lemen's weblog. When I get tired of the news of the day, I find myself wandering to her site (among others) for calm sensibility, and consistently beautiful reflections. I can count on Jen Lemen to break my heart -- in very good ways -- with her observations about her children, her sister, her art, her world.
That world of hers overlaps mine in one of the saddest possible ways -- our peripheral and tangible connections to the Harvey family, who were murdered last New Year's Day in Richmond. She recently wrote about Richmond, and its loss:
I learned the news through my sister Patience who does kindness work with the nurse midwife who delivered Kathryn’s babies in a local hospital. Nancy was in over her head trying to calm the women about to deliver. In the birth world, the sanctity of your house is everything, especially for mothers planning to deliver at home. Patience was having trouble sleeping at night along with so many other young mothers in Richmond. The fact that something so atrocious could happen anywhere, let alone to people as caring and creative as the Harveys, was hard to fathom. “It’s not that they were some symbol of the perfect family or anything like that,” my sister says. “They were just the kind of people who were living their best lives–their dreams. And they knew how to create community. People loved them for knowing how to do that. Knowing how to make that kind of loving, joyful space.”
My sister and I talked on the phone constantly that week. I wanted to know how the women in the neighborhood were faring. Every few days Patience would pack up baby Lucy in the car and take someone a meal or leave flowers on someone’s doorstep ...
... That day I sat on my porch and did the only thing I know how to do when there seems like all hope is gone. I lit one of my little candles and wrote out blessings. Only this time, I tried to imagine there was a Divine Mother watching over the whole mess. I asked for words to bring about healing. I asked for peace to fill every dark and fearful place. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up the kind of love that can face up to that kind of horror. I prayed for Patience and her wide, loving heart. I thought about Gray killing those little children and tried to remember what it was like when he was a baby before he lost the warmth of his mother’s arms. I tried to not think about something like that ever happening again ...
... I’ve spent days trying to write this story, and I’m still not certain why it’s so important to me that I do it. All I know is that everytime I work on it, my tears are right there on the surface of things. In this moment, after hours of pouring through articles and news reports, I’m overcome by how fragile we are as human beings and how completely in need we are of love and careful care. I close my eyes and try to imagine each person in this story as a baby in my arms. Bryan. Kathryn. Ruby. Stella. Ray. Ricky. Mark. I try to hold this sadness and all the joy of each tender life, even though it’s impossible in so many ways.I go over these words over and over again, spoken by Bryan Harvey while he was still on this earth:
“I don’t really believe in God. However, I think I’m a pretty spiritual person. I have a lot of faith in humans. I believe we’re capable of incredibly beautiful things (as well as incredibly evil).”
May incredible beauty be our hallmark. May peace, strange and unexpected, come to all who suffer this loss, like an unexpected rainfall. And may I meet every human eye with kindness in my own, remembering where we each began.
Thanks, Jen. You rock.
