This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness Excerpt Chapter #39 Hummingbird Heart
I awoke remembering a vivid dream of a woman with her two small children clinging to a steep, muddy mountainside. The children held on desperately as the waterlogged earth slipped away beneath them. The woman had no expression on her face. There was no light in her eyes. I laid on my belly at the top of the mountain, reaching down to them. The woman did not reach up. She appeared to have already surrendered to the destructive forces. Perhaps she understood if she moved, they would all fall. The children stretched as far as they could to reach my hands. As soon as I grabbed their tiny hands and pulled them to safety, I turned to the woman, but the wet earth had already enveloped her. It was as if she was not holding them up, but they were holding her up.
We watched the machine mark her fading pulse as her heart gradually surrendered for the third and final time. We emptied everything left in our hearts as my brother’s silence remained unbroken. “Goodbye, Mom. Be at peace now.” I said, “Finally, you can be the big sister you always wanted to be and watch over us all.” Her son and I wrapped up in the warmth of each other’s arms like small creatures facing the cold.
Clare Cooley
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