Patrick's Birthday 2013

Today is Patrick's birthday.

One of my Magical Sabbatical sisters, Kristy, sent me a new Virgin of Guadalupe candle.
I am going to light it for the first time today. There is a perfect space for it, on Patrick's shrine in his old room.
My writing room now.

This shelf is just to my left.  I don't even need to turn my head much to see it.


This post here still says about all I can say about my boy's life.
It's really just a lot of photographs.
I know there's surely more to say, something better, something more meaningful, something that will hold more. More love. More connection. More understanding of who he was....really.

Among all the things that break me when I think about Patrick is the sense that I didn't know him.
My therapist said that, at twenty, he didn't even know himself.

Still. I keep thinking a mother should know her son.

But, almost 7 years after he left us, I'm still waiting for that.
And I am patient.

And until then, I bless you, beloved son, bless you big.

I bless you

every day.
Your name forms in pale strands
drifting in the black pool
behind my closed lids.
Your name forms and slowly drifts apart
and I think of Sartre’s
deep dark,

but his nothingness was his

and mine allows
blessing you still  (knowing
it matters)

every day at the altar

where i leave orange & lemon
peels, candied ginger
offerings for the saints
and goddesses and my beloved dead,

where I light candles poured in the slow dreamtime.

They are lined up waiting for fire and hope.
In the burning and the melting
I bless you every day.

My words are tumbling water,
filling all voids
bearing sad things away
and I bless you

every day.

(Zann Carter - 2010)