#ArtInstallation No 18 – @FortunateOnesNL – The Bliss

This post examines the healing power of art. Artists are brave. They create a thing and then let go of it. We catch art’s beauty for our own inspiration, joy, comfort, consolation or bliss.

The song in the video above caught my attention today.

Every year on this day, I think about my son who would have been been 20 years old today. He only lived two days.

Each year when March 18 rolls around, I look for some little spark or memento to mark this day emotionally. I need to feel and think about my son and to mark the fact that he was here somehow. Babies that die become ghosts to everyone but their mothers. Their spark will always be alive in us. We know they were here.

I don’t want you to think I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself today. I just wanted something, anything, to help me express my sad and hard-earned (after many years) peaceful acceptance of the greatest loss in my life.

I was doing some research for my work as a writer when I ran across this song – The Bliss by The Fortunate Ones.

Even though The Fortunate Ones’ song has nothing to do with losing a child, it is exactly what I needed today. It has a lovely chorus to hum along to and a repeated message – My heart, it’s okay. That chorus reminded me not to question the “why”. I know there’s no answer and I’ve learned that we can bare anything we can accept.

I also like that this song is about uncertainty.

I take it to mean that just because you are brave enough to follow your bliss doesn’t mean the path to bliss is always easy. You have to keep on believing. That was my experience with parenting. The awareness of what bliss it is to have a healthy child came with the miracle of my second child. The awakening of my deep gratitude to be a parent came from the contrast of losing my firstborn.

Like the song says, I’ve been through the darkness, the shadows and long nights. I’ve had plenty of tender-hearted sadness pulling me through days. I feel the urgency of how short life can be and I’m inspired to live my life to the fullest now.

I don’t pray for strength. I’ve got all the strength I’ll ever need. I pray for joy now and on days where that rip in my heart starts to pull at its stitches, its good to find a song to tell it the right thing, “My heart, it’s okay”.

This one’s for you my angel son, my firstborn, my Ryan.

Here are the lyrics of the song and I’m sending out sincere gratitude to the artists – Catherine Allan and Andrew James O’Brien – for the healing they gave me with their words and song today.

The Bliss

by The Fortunate Ones

 

Can’t find a foe or friend to do this darkness in

Shadows creep and bend, I cannot pretend

That I don’t miss my home or that I’m not alone

Now I must atone for all the time I’ve wasted

 

But this is what I chose
Long nights and endless road

All this letting go,
Who was I to know
I miss my family
If they could only see
All that I’ve become
Alone and on the run

 

If this is all there is, maybe that’s okay
Believing in the bliss, wishing my time away
A tender-hearted sadness pulls me through the day But that’s alright
My heart is okay

I am fading under dying light
Reaching through the dark for words to say it right I am restless, I am losing sleep
Kept up by promises I knew I’d never keep

 

My heart, it’s okay
My heart’s okay
My heart’s okay
My heart’s okay
Okay, my heart’s okay

My heart

 

Where’s inspiration
Where is urgency
They are like passing ships
They keep eluding me
I’ve got a good heart and I’ve got able hands

Give me back my eyes
Lead me to the land