Light

Light

Today I feel the way my grandfathers would want me to feel. Today I feel that flutter again for life. Fun things behind, fun things ahead.

Light.

Today as heard my dogs softly snoring around me, my washing machine going, my heater whirring. I felt gratitude take a hold on my heart. For a moment I had a jolt of guilt…and guilt said to me “stay down, be melancholy, hold the weight of grief…because it’s never going away” But gratitude said…” Be grateful for this grief that came because you loved”. And I was. And I am.

Light

The hardest thing in the world is living through loss.  We will never, not feel the loss of Zach, our 26-year-old child. I will never look at Chris not know that on the sunniest day, on the most perfect day, in the most perfect moments, wherever he is and whatever he is doing…he has a hole in his heart and soul that cannot be mended. It can be managed. But that is all. The same goes for our kids, and all of Zach’s loved ones. And sometimes that holds me back. I start to feel that flutter of happiness, gratitude, abject joy over the life I’ve created, all I have in both possessions and people in my life, but I often start to run toward that and find myself running into a brick wall of…loss. And on that brick wall words are written, like, “you can’t get around me or over me or through me”. “No matter what you do…I’m here and I’ll overshadow all you do, all you want, all you can have”. For many days now, that wall has backed me down.

Today I found a tiny crack. Instead of tamping down that flutter of joy when I felt gratitude for life, I smiled at it. I welcomed it. It felt good. So good.

Light

What is behind that wall is light. A stream of words comes to me now…

Light of the Lord

Light of the World

Light instead of dark

Light instead of heavy

Light to shed on truth

Light to know the truth

Light to see the truth

Light a fire

Light

It’s funny to me how words can sound simple. This journey I’ve been on has been crushing. Unbelievably crushing. Pushing through to that light has been like trying to push a one-thousand-pound boulder off my chest that fell from the sky and wounded me, my family, and our entire surroundings. There is no heroic moment. I did not rise up and push that boulder off me. It’s still here. But under it, I am seeing some light, my family is seeing some light, and our surroundings are starting to get back to normal.

Someone please say…can this woman use any more heavy object references…first a brick wall, now a boulder? (in Jim Gaffigan’s voice please)

Oh well…I needed to write this and it’s not perfect. I wanted to give myself something to look back on when if I find myself in darkness again so that maybe, I can help myself see it…

The Light.