Surprised by Grief

So Secundo is beautiful and smart and altogether more than I deserve. And he has these motor tics, and I am about to plunge into the familiar waters of lay neurological research. And in talking to my friend, I feel this undertow of resistance I haven't felt for a long time.

I sort of imagine the universe or Whatever Shit Makes Things Happen as something vaguely anthropoid, a golem stumbling around with a stocking over its head, holding a big knife, crashing into things and destroying them randomly, based on the amoral and inexorable laws of nature. It's a killer, but not malicious. It just obeys its immutable laws and occasionally slashes children in the process.

Once, long ago, when I was Very, Very Sad, I remember listening to my daughter singing "Mary had a little lamb," and her voice had this quaver. And seven years later, I can still hear it, the sweetness of that quaver, realizing she was autistic, and thinking something like, "No, don't hurt her," to the stocking-faced anthropoid. But it came charging through with its knife anyway, because pleading and bargaining don't work with it, because it has no desires, or the petty inducements I offer it--random limbs, years of life--aren't as tempting as my children.

And usually I don't feel sad, but every now and then something breaks through, a micro-thought along the lines of, "Does it have to be? Can't you just sit down for awhile and stop slashing?"