In graduate school, I once made a scroll from a scrap of linen. Irises, a Greek symbol for the link between heaven and earth, were equally spaced in a long, single row. The flower blossoms, painted in various colors, stood like living monuments against a pale, milky sky. Their roots, etched out of darkness, morphed into corpse-like forms below. The concept was this: We are connected to those who have gone before us. We share our lives with our dead. We carry them, and they carry us. I titled the scroll Prayer for People in Cemeteries.

Two years ago, when we buried my mother alongside my twin brother, I remembered this prayer. I stood as a living body among other living bodies, our feet dense and full of blood on a field crowded with death, and watched her, too, go into the earth. And what now? I asked myself. What of us who had assembled there on the morning frost? What responsibility did we have to this person we were burying? What were we to let go of, and what were we to safeguard within us?

How we die and how we carry our dead is what makes our village life or breaks it, says spiritual activist and palliative care expert Stephen Jenkinson. "A death is all of our deaths," he claims, "one death at a time, until our time comes." In this way, "the experience of death and dying remains one enduring place where we can declare who and what we are willing to be to one another."

Who am I willing to be to my mother?
Who am I willing to be to my brother?

In the months following my mother's funeral, sanity seemed to hinge more and more on finding answers to these questions. I decided to revisit the prayer in my scroll. I wanted to make a new version, one so immense in scope and scale that a resolution was impossible to imagine. I would make giant prayers, prayers for me and my dead—prayers for all of us, for all of our dead. Perhaps through devotion to a project that was too tremendous to envision, answers would appear. I thought of The Way of the Pilgrim, and Salinger's Franny and Zooey. Maybe the quest to "pray without ceasing" was a way out of madness.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Maybe painting prayers—painting in prayer—would set my grieving spirit free. "Grief isn't how you feel, grief is what you do. It's a skill," says Jenkinson, "And the twin of grief, as a skill of life, is the skill of being able to praise, or love life. Which means wherever you find one authentically done, the other is very close at hand. Grief and the praise of life, side by side."

I will love and praise your life. I will love and praise all life.
I will be full of wonder for your life. I will be full of wonder for all life.
I will pay attention to your life. I will pay attention to all life.
I will obey the natural order of your life and death. I will obey the natural order of all life and death.
I will make a place for this sorrow. I will make a place for all sorrow.
I will make meaning from your life. I will make meaning from all life.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Seven years after my twin's death, and a handful of months before my mother's, I had a dream of a boy holding an enormous bleeding heart above my head. Droplets of blood fell all around me. “Are they landing on you?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “You don’t want to remember me?” he continued. I was confused by the question. I was just thinking how I didn't really mind the blood, or remembering. I reached up to touch the heart, and then licked my forefinger to taste the iron on my tongue.

What was the boy talking about? Hadn't I been awash in the memory of my brother and his blood for nearly a decade? Hadn't I grieved intensely year after year? Hadn't my life become a way of being and doing everything for him? Hadn't I been willing to carry everything for my twin?

Despite the work on my prayer paintings, despite my all-consuming pursuit to perfect my grief, answers were not coming. I felt myself slipping.

Who am I willing to be to my mother?
Who am I willing to be to my brother?

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I tried praying for release.
Lords Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I tried to fulfill my covenant with the dead.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I tried to carry my mother and my brother.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I tried to make a place for my sadness.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I tried to turn my grief into something beautiful.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Yet for all my efforts, I was rapidly losing ground. Sleepless nights passed one after another.
Excruciating pressure crushed the space inside my head. An intolerable heat filled my chest.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

One afternoon in late February of last year, when I thought I truly could not exist another moment in my body, I went outside in the garden and sat on the grass. I shut my eyes against the bright sun, and before I could even begin to pray, I saw her.

Spirit, what are you doing out there? Please, come back inside me.
I don’t want to come back inside you.
Why don't you want to come back inside me?
It is very sad in there. I cannot live inside such sadness anymore.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I never knew that clarity could be so devastating. All these years, all this suffering, and all along everything had been about the wrong questions. The heart the boy had been holding was not that of my brother, nor that of my soon-to-be dead mother. It was my own. Big. Bleeding. Forgotten.

Who am I willing to be to myself?
Who am I willing to be to my spirit?

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

I need you to come back, Spirit, so we can heal together.
If I come back, would you promise to be gentle and soft with me?
Yes, I promise to be gentle and soft with you.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you promise not to judge me so harshly?
Yes, I promise not to judge you so harshly.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you promise not to demand things of me when I am tired?
Yes, I promise not to demand things of you when you are tired.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you make me a bed, and promise to let me rest in it?
Yes, I will make you a bed, and promise to let you rest in it.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you promise not to blame me for things that were out of my control?
Yes, I promise not to blame you for things that were out of your control.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If you do, I will go away again.
I understand.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you promise to care for me as you would care for the spirit of your twin? Because he is in me, and he wants to live in a peaceful heart.
Yes, I promise to care for you as I would care for the spirit of my twin.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

If I come back, would you promise to receive me as joyously as you receive Gormaen?
You're bringing Gormaen into this?

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Am I not as beautiful and deserving as he is?
Okay, I promise to try and receive you as joyously as I receive Gormaen.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Gormaen in the garden with the dragonfruit flower.

In my preoccupation with death, I had somehow stopped attending to life. Haunted by what I had been unable to do for others, I had forgotten what I needed to do for myself. Perhaps I had never really known.

There on the grass in the sunlight, realizing the consequences of what I had neglected, I saw the way out of my pain. I understood that the prayer paintings were not for Mom and Ross, and never really had been. They were for me, for the living. They were prayers for all the parts of me that had been broken and betrayed—not by others, but by myself. Parts that were so buried and bleeding that my own spirit didn't even want to live inside me anymore.

I cannot take care of a spirit that has no safe home. I will make a safe home for my spirit.
I cannot take responsibility for the choices of my loved ones. I will release myself from this responsibility.
I cannot carry the sadness of my mother and brother. I will put down their sadness.
I cannot exist in the depth of my own sadness. I will make a shore for my sadness. I will turn my sadness into something beautiful.
I cannot be nourished without joy. I will make space for joy.

I made promises I didn't know how to keep, but I knew I would find ways to keep them. I would make a home for my own spirit, and in doing so, I would be making a home for the spirits of those I love. Care for me as you would care for the spirit of your twin. He is in me, and he wants to live in a peaceful heart.

Yes, Spirit.
Yes, Rossi.
Yes, Mommy.

I promise us all a peaceful and joyous heart.

Promises

Manifest Gallery: In Memoriam

"Interrupted" at Coburn Gallery