Georgia Heals

Wintering.

In January of 2011, I sat in my grandparent’s home in Atlanta with my sick mother by my side looking out at the mild winter’s bare branches. And mourned.

At that moment in time, I mourned for her health, for our family, and for the inevitability of loss felt even more acutely in the heart of Winter. My bones remember the feeling of being in Atlanta that January. The temperature. The sounds. The subtle, steady heartache that sung me to sleep night after night.

This January — a decade later — I once again find myself in Atlanta, looking out of my big brother’s window at the bare branches.

I am still mourning. For parts of the past, for my body, for my future, for my mother.

Only this January I am also healing.

This January I put my attention on the birds flying from one branch to the other. Between them — in and out and on. They are all around. There isn’t much food to find aside from the feeder my brother just installed. But they still fly.

And they still sing.

I could not have imagined that two Januarys a decade apart I’d be in Atlanta. Both times visiting a doctor. Both times being fed and nourished by family. Both times profoundly aware of life’s bounty and life’s loss.

There is something about this city, this place. The place of my mother’s birth and mother’s death. Of my family ties. Of my near run-in with death. Of my life’s resuscitation.

My homeland. It beckons me.