I bought a mermaid and child statue last summer for Corrie’s mermaid theme through the mail.
It broke on the way. I was sad because it was my favorite of all the mermaid items I’d purchased for her grave.
As I was on the way out of the store yesterday that had sold this statue of mermother and child, I saw the same statue. I chose not to buy it because I remembered how easily it had broken in the mail.
But there was another version on it to go on the wall. Just as art speaks to us, the mermother and daughter spoke to me more powerfully than any other piece I’ve ever viewed. I saw the dream; the fairytale where I hold my daughter again.
The guy at the counter said, “You know this is not on sale.” I said, “I don’t care.” I probably said it more straightforward, but after you’ve lost a child, you get a feel for how some people will treat you. Some encourage you opening up, while others look at you hoping a part of your tragedy won’t rub off on them. So, you become more straightforward because this person could never understand why I needed the mermother and daughter now.
“It’s just some people get confused with the fifty-percent off signs up everywhere.”
“It’s fine.”
I decided to keep this one at home with me rather than at the cemetery because my relationship with Corrie is very visible through the care and decoration of her resting place.
The area around Corrie’s grave marker is an artistic outlet where I can show what represents her spirit, intelligence, and heart. Among her interest in the various Disney princesses, her favorites were: Elsa, Tiana, Jasmine, Aurora and Ariel.
(Truth be told: I originally left out Aurora, and I could hear Corrie say, “But, Mommy, I loved her, too.”)
Mermaids have a lot of representation in my poetry and writing because Corrie not only loved mermaids, but she was wearing an Ariel shirt when she died. For a long time, I could not even look at mermaids without crying.
But as the poem shows the journey, I’m making peace with mermaids.
Of lighthouses and mermaids
Lighthouses always stand where
ocean waters dare,
and mermaids swim far below the
currents. They avoid being
swayed to and fro.
Muscles in their tails move
without a care;
stronger than a shark’s as they
swim where they wish in the waters
without nature’s rules.
I once blamed the mermaids with the force of
a thousand flares
when I had to put a shirt over my daughter’s
stomach swollen from a tumor
in her final hours.
I once blamed the mermaids out of my
complete despair,
and then I took myself to court for more than
one thousand days as I failed to find
what lay beneath
the rise of tides and fading lights when I
could not bear
the loss of my only little girl in her
little mermaid shirt. In the darkest hours, someone
says, “Lighthouses still stand.”
Storms wash away paint on the lighthouse, and
there’s no repair.
But the lighthouse still stands on the rocks taking
on movies, myths and legends about what
has taken place.
Beneath the rocks where ocean currents swell, mer-
-maids swim there.
I’ve been making peace with mermaids as the paint
fades on the lighthouses at the seaside because there’s
no one to blame.
Mermaids always swim below where
ocean waters dare,
and I know, among the secret things
that my daughter has her angel wings to fly
far above the storm.
By Rebecca T. Dickinson
Corrie's Season 