"Olivia"

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  {Item & Poetry Installation}

Grief comes in all shapes and sizes. 

This particular grief isn’t talked about much. Many of you may relate. 

I have kept this cup for over 17 years. It was to be for my yet to be born daughter, Olivia. She never appeared in this lifetime. Many a night was spent weeping for the loss of the assumption I would have a child to care for and love. The confusion as to why it hadn’t happened yet. The shame that I couldn’t relate to motherly friends around me. The rejection of my first spouse who chose not to have a child with me My second marriage maybe another chance at it ... but then waking one morning in a pool of blood and wondering ... was that she? 

And if so, who she might have become. 

We all grew with it, didn’t we?

That idea that we were women and our role

was to bear more human beings

We dreamed of it, we held onto it, 

we assumed it

With each encounter, we wondered if,

we wondered when. 

We thought it was just a matter of time.

We were just waiting in line.

But time went by, and nothing happened.

I think I named them all.

Esther and Ephraim, Gracie and Frankie, 

Ash and Olivia.

I saved this cup for Olivia.

A special gift for a special girl.

I never had the good fortune to meet her and 

maybe now I never will.

And so, this cup waits. A child in waiting.

And I hold the grief. In my hands. 

The cup, itself a vessel of grief.

The loss of what I never found. 

The loss of our forever.

Olivia – the name of an idea only in my head.

A cup that will never be supped, by her.

A handle that will never be held, by her.

Olivia.