The eighty-five-year-old woman slumped
to the floor upon hearing about the sudden
death of her forty-nine-year-old daughter
and let out an involuntary, blood-curdling moan.

The twenty-year-old woman slumped
to the floor upon hearing about the sudden
death of her forty-nine-year-old mother
and let out an involuntary, blood-curdling moan.

The twenty-four-year-old man walked slowly
up the drive to the house where his forty-nine-
year-old mother lived before she died suddenly
and as he walked he let out an involuntary,
blood-curdling moan.

The forty-eight-year-old man lifted an angry fist
to the heavens and cursed God following the sudden
death of his forty-nine-year-old wife and he let
out an involuntary, blood-curdling moan.

The moans joined the moans of all those throughout
history who suffered tragedy in any and all ways —
slavery, war, pestilence.

The moans rose to the heavens to join the
moans of Father, Son, Spirit, Mother,
Daughter, Sophia, Creator, Redeemer,
Sustainer until there could be heard
nothing throughout the universe but
one, involuntary, blood-curdling moan —

and that one, involuntary, universal, blood-
cuddling moan birthed life.

*idea from a meditation by Richard Rohr