Air and Water

Reflection by Jayne Singer

Dr. Singer is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience working with a diverse array of children and families in hospital and community-based settings. She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Singer was the founding president of the Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health (MassAIMH), and is involved in advocacy work in infant and early childhood mental health in Massachusetts. She is on the faculty at the Brazelton Institute and at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center.

March 13, 2018, the day we lost Berry, was supposed to be the second day of a Newborn Behavioral Observations training I was teaching at Harvard Medical School in Boston. By the end of the first day, a terrific blizzard had descended upon Boston and we knew as we wrapped up early that the medical school buildings and many others would be closed the following day. For training participants who were relatively local to the training, we postponed and rescheduled the second day and sent them all on their way with cautionary words for their safe travel. Re-scheduling was not an option for participants who’d come from afar, including internationally. And so I, who live about 2 miles from the Brazelton Institute and could walk there if public transportation was down, made plans with those participants to meet up on the 13th at the BI offices and continue our training there, as I had my badge that could gain us entry. So, on the morning of March 13th, I set off on foot to trudge my way through the continued blizzard over to the office building. Part of the way there I could walk along the “Muddy River” which was quite beautiful in the snow. For whatever reason, I found that I’d paused on a foot bridge over the river to watch the snow falling in large, soft clusters. I gathered and packed a dense handful and dropped it into the water below, absorbed in watching the concentric circles rippling outwards. Then I shivered and went on my way. There were only three participants plus myself, so we set up in Berry’s office for a more intimate training day around his table. When I am teaching, I usually turn my personal devices to mute or off. More inextricable than my decision to pause on the bridge, I had my cell next to me while teaching and even more out of character, decided to look at it when it vibrated. Then, seeing a number calling that I didn’t recognize, I completely deviated from usual and rose while still teaching, and excused myself. I’d barely made it to the hall when I heard the news. It had to be another half hour before I was even able to pull myself together and return to the training. There, I then needed to share the shattering news with the group, as well as ask them not to share it just yet since there had not yet been a public announcement. As you can imagine of NBO participants, they were wonderful people to be with in a time of acute grief and they offered to suspend the training. Yet I felt deeply and still do, that continuing the work is a rich way to keep Berry with us and make meaning of such deep loss that comes from deep connection and so, we proceeded with the teaching. It was once they all had left and I was alone in the Suite, in Berry’s office, sitting in his rocking chair that the enormity of the loss was most “searing”, as I later wrote about in the poem. And it was later that evening that I deeply cut my finger while preparing dinner, my mind and heart clearly on other things. The poem came to me some short weeks later as I once again ended a day rocking in his chair in his office and thinking back over the last 30 years of mentorship, friendship, adventure, and love. Oh, and I learned on the call that Berry’s time of death was when I had paused on the bridge. I am so grateful for the years of his companionship and tutelage; and to this work together with all of us as we continue to ripple and reverberate ever outwards.

Air and Water

By Jayne Singer

The day you died, I cut my finger.

The latter shaved my skin; the former sliced my being.

Both stung and I winced with pain.

One drew a soul-searing howl,

And one drew blood.

I don’t heal as quickly as I once did

The scab’s been slow to come: just when it seals, it opens again.

Renewed stinging as it lets in air and water.

I see it and feel it always.

The acuity will abate; I know it will.

Already leaving an angry purple patch.

Yet I’m too old for it to ever fully fade.

Today; I am grateful for that as I sit where I was when I heard.

It

will always be a reminder:

The scar of your absence upon my heart

As I live; letting in air and water.