My child died unexpectedly as a teenager.
It was paralysingly shocking, almost like the end of the world. Worse than the stories tell you.
And yet nothing changed, even though AI apparently offers transformation as an almost automatic, poetic consequence. The world does not stop, and your neighbour does not turn down the cheerful summer music because of your loss. Your personality and outlook do not change. You do not understand life’s uniqueness and fragility any better.
But I did understand that I could — indeed, that I had to — laugh and find joy in life in my child’s honour, as part of their legacy. “Mum, chill,” they often said when I fretted about little things, such as their failure to learn to knit a sock, followed by throwing the unfinished effort onto the school roof. Perhaps that counts as change; perhaps it does not. Cause and effect are a complicated weave.
Life goes on and finds its course, sooner or later. You will get through this. You are still needed. Your time to leave is not yet. As time passes, the tsunami recedes and settles into smaller waves. Let your smile shine.
— Peilityyni