On February 29, 2000, my mom leaped between worlds to a new place where I could not see. I drowned without warning, unable to swim as my roots were now tangled around me. To return to land, I took my own leap through cold time, dark embers, and hologram waves of the psyche. I since came around to myself, but recast. Death must be something like that, a luminous transformation where the soul is returned to the source but now changed.

The thing about the Leap Day loss is I have more comings than goings. Each August, we dine on her favorites, sweet corn on the cob and ripe peaches. All of us feel the heat and the storms. The lightning is common and deep.  The roots of the willow rise up to meet the lily, hydrangea and lilac. We are dressed up and singing like heaven or love when just born and celestial. Your heart, that is summer, her birthday. The day she arrived in this world.

When Leap Day does come it is rare and strange to see the occasion marked there on the wall. What else can I write in the square? Most years send the gift of detachment but here it is staring me back. Is there really a way to escape? Perhaps the void between the 28th and the 1st is the space the most real because I make that leap every day – every time I leap back to her darkness and light. Every time I leap back to myself.

© Angela Bigler 2012

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haniamir/2630466183/