Transition

They say it is the shortest part of the process, the shortest but the most intense. If one can last the flight of youth, the lengthy lingering of middle age, the subtle stagnation of being elderly and, perhaps infirm at that, then the transition would seem quick.

It is worth mentioning, of course, that while the whole of the process and the number of accumulated years might vary, the transaction still completes the same way for each of us. We breathe, we breathe, we breathe and then the air recedes, the blood stills, the pain fades, the brain shuts down all systems like a shop manager closing up. The store is there, still and solid, but with empty shelves, absent customers, cobwebs clouding corners and dust piling up.

In childbirth it is the same, you know. Transition is the shortest part, filled with long languishing labor pains, a constant undulating tightening wave racing east to west around the belly without fail. It presses in. It presses down. It forces life from life, miracle like and marvelous.

We cry for mercy in any case. We cry for hope. We cry for an end to the pain and that mercy presses in and it presses down. It forces life from life to wherever it goes next, miracle like and mysterious.

And those of us who wait, who watch, who stay behind, we witness that great mystery, that soft miracle, that marvel. The grief pours in with the ebb of breath. Sometimes it brings along relief, sometimes wonder, sometimes anger. This is our transition, a series of perpetual transitions, a dialing of numbers and outpouring of words or tears or memories until we have only that hollow space, here, beneath the ribs.

At night we feel that space, holding air, holding grief. We hold it gently there, like a sacred word spoken in the dark. We worry that we'll forget if we speak it. We worry that we will be forgotten. We worry that we will fade from this world to nothing, to everything, to white light.

We wonder what any of it will mean then. We wonder about the arguments and the tears, about the organic foods, the chocolate bars, leaded or unleaded, gluten free, half price, full time, all roads leading fast into the woods or the desert or the inner city.

Then a breath, and another, and a third. We breathe, we breathe, we breathe. We remember that our heart still beats. We remember that the earth is round. We remember that though the waves rush across the belly east to west, tightening without fail, that this is the shortest part, the transition.

But we don't believe it in that moment, we hold to that hollow space just beneath the ribcage. We press our hands to that space. We press in, we press down until at last we force life from life. We deepen into the dark at last, pulling out life - blinking and reluctant, miracle like and marvelous, mysterious and merciful.