« S. mit kind ». Gerhard Richter. 1995

Since my mother's death, last April, there are these moments I find myself trying to grasp the notion of absence. I find myself puzzled, trying to think about her – not alive. To picture her alive is not a problem for me. But grasping her 'not here'?

It has struck me during these past months that keeping in mind the 'no' – no body – is something I can bear for not more than a split second. I touch upon this for a really tiny second. And then it fades away, disappears, diminishes… This is something I haven't encountered before.

I thought something like: 'how is it possible to grasp the notion of death? the notion of No presence?' (Without inventing a hallucination…) I think this 'one split second' is a product of the real. This 'one split second' is a product of the real because it comes from the body, it strikes. Like thunder. The instant it attaches to an idea, an object, a mental object, it becomes something else something you can grasp/think/talk.

Until that point, it is 'one split second'. One split second of a bit of real. A bit of: she is not here any more. Of: the end.

Hamutal Shapira
Israel