Raw

Sometimes, it just kind of hits me.
Unexpectedly.
And it's the shock of it that hurts the most.

I was digging through the closet in our guest room, searching for some of my old teacher supplies to use with sweet nanny child, and I found something I had almost completely forgotten.
This giant red and blue pirate octopus.  This adorable stuffed toy that had made me squeal when we spotted it at Target. We had just had our first ultrasound, and Chris was all beaming and proud and wanted a photo album.
Because we had our baby's first picture.
The only picture.
But we didn't know that yet.
Then we saw this octopus.

I was a little apprehensive about buying it because it might not have "matched" the nursery theme we were considering, but Chris said, "Screw it. The theme is stuff we like. Do you like the pirate octopus? Good. Then it matches.  We're buying it."
Baby's first stuffed animal.
I carried it through the store like a six-year-old. Giddy. Giggling. My baby didn't even have fingers, and it had a toy. A great, big, happy, eight-legged buccaneer cephalopod. 

That's the start of an epic childhood, right?

Now, it sits in its Target bag, stuffed on top of a box of Christmas decorations.  It still has the tags on it. I don't even really remember what it looks like besides the colors. I think it wears an eyepatch. I don't want to take it all the way out, really look at it. There's no point.
Not because I'm not healing, and not because I'm bitter. Because suddenly it hurts badly again, and I want to cry.
I hate crying.
It's messy and vulnerable and upsetting. It's necessary, I get that, and I know I can feel better afterwards, but not that night. Not right then.
Really, there are times when I just don't think I can cry about it any more. I cried so much in the beginning, those first few months. I think I've allotted my annual tear quota.

Then I opened the chest of drawers, looking for a pencil bag, and, right on top, were the baby clothes my in-laws bought us, one week after our ultrasound.  A little pair of baby Converse sneakers (to match the ones Chris and I wear--we always said our babies would wear Converse), a bright green Saint Patrick's Day onesie, and a little froggie beanie I had picked out when we went shopping together. 
Laying on top.
Still with their tags.
And it hurt again, a little worse this time.

I shoved the drawer closed and moved to another.
Quickly.
It burned. 

It had taken me by surprise, you see. When I know something's coming, something in me steels itself. I didn't even realized I do that--prepared myself, put on an extra bandaid or two. Here, I had no time. I didn't even remember where we had stashed them.
Because that's what we did, you know.  For weeks after the news, we left the baby stuff out, on display almost, because we didn't know what to do with it. This odd mixture of a happy memory and leaving it because we didn't want touch it.  Then we hid it, because the house needed cleaning and I couldn't take it the empty cheeriness any more. It was over. There was no point. 

It hurt.

It's been almost five months. I can talk about it, now, without tearing up.  I don't make it a secret, but I don't go shouting to everyone I meet at every chance I get. It's not some badge of honor or agony or anything.
It just is.
In explaining my upcoming (at some point) surgery, sometimes I have to explain that it's the result of a miscarriage.
It doesn't hurt to say that.

It's just a fact of life.

It happened.

Then I see those tiny little things, and it hurts to remember how excited we were.

Did I ever tell you that we even bought a crib set?
I'm not a fan of most crib sheet and bumper sets--they just end up feeling cheesy, but I found one online that made me all giggly and happy. I could see the whole nursery--for a boy or a girl--coming together.  It was on sale, so Chris told me to buy it.
I did, ordered it from my phone right there in my OBGYN's waiting room before we went back and saw the heartbeat that first time.
That only time.
The set came in the mail, and I immediately called my mom and sent her pictures because it was perfect.

The baby bedding sat in the guest room, exposed, for a long time after the silent ultrasound.  It was easy to shut the door and ignore it. Then I grew accustomed to it. It was just part of the scenery.
When my mom came to visit, I took it out and showed her. Because one day we do want to use it. Because it's still stinkin cute. 

And perfect.
It's on a top shelf in our closet, so high you can't see it unless you're looking for it.

I think things are a little more raw than usual because I saw a hematologist to clear up the surgery bloodwork. You know, just to get a thumbs up to get surgery.  There were more blood tests. Once again, chatting with the pleasant lab technician, hearing that I have "nice veins," and watching the needle go in and fill six vials with the deep red fluid that gives us all life. My arm always feels tingling and cold afterwards.  I wait a week and a half, return to the doctor, and he gives me my results.
My blood, apparently, is an over-zealous clotter.
It doesn't mean anything about my health, really--it's a condition that appears and disappears without explanation, one that may or may not carry with it any symptoms.
I'm one of those without symptoms.
Except one.
The condition causes miscarriages.

So now we have answers.
It was my fault.

He tells me that it doesn't necessarily have to be this way, forever. That, if I take a baby aspirin a day while pregnant, I might carry full term.
That everything could have a happy ending.
The hope makes it a little brighter.

That, really, had it not been for this growth--this freak-of-nature dermoid requiring surgery--we never would have known about my blood. That we could have miscarried again and again and again without answers. Maybe we will anyways, but now we know why. Now we have a plan, something to do.

You see, there's always a plan. Something to do. Even if that something is just waiting.
Because God is good. All the time. Even in the dark, messy, crappy stuff. 

Life hurts.

Sometimes, it downright SUCKS.

But the hope of a purpose? Of something beyond myself?

It keeps me from curling up in bed and never getting up. 

It gives me the hope and the courage to keep smiling.

To talk about it.

To hurt. 

And to heal. 

To be okay.

I don't know my future.

Someone else does.
And that's more than okay. 

Life is still good because He is good. 

We have hope because He gifts it. 

We hurt, we heal, we hope. 

And He always is. 

And He is always good.

Even when we feel utterly abandoned.

Lost.

Crushed.

Defeated.

There is always light.

Somewhere. 

In the end, the middle, above, below, glittering through the cracks, sometimes so small you barely see them.

But light is always there. 

Because He is always there. 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, 

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

 the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 

yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; 

he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.
--Habakkuk 3:17-19a

Prepping

Peeps, since our last little chat, I finally got my surgery scheduled.
Isn't that a nasty word? "Surgery." It sounds like something slicing away. We always associate it with some sharp, some dire situation.
I have to stress the word MINOR when I have to explain why I'll be missing from group activities and Bible study on Wednesday. Otherwise, people look at me like I'm preparing to light my own funeral pyre. Not that I don't understand--if someone said, to me, that she were going into surgery, I might look at her the same way--surprised, concerned, care, all of those things decent humans feel for the other facing pain, but it's a bit embarrassing to be on the receiving end.  They tell me that I will WALK out of the hospital the same day I'm admitted, that I won't even need stitches. No, they're going to glue me back together like bits of paper. Tiny incisions, I won't even have battle scars, really, though they warned me there may be nasty bruising some time later.

I'll go under, the scope will go in, they make a small incision in my side, and cut out my little dermoid, then I'm glued back together, wake up, and I leave. It's as simple as that, they tell me.

Well, and, you know, the "bowel prep" the day before--today. Doesn't that just sound awful? Basically, I can have nothing--absolutely NOTHING--but fluids until midnight tonight, after which I may consume nothing at all. it makes sense--it really does. But golly . . . I really really REALLY want the homemade soup I have in the fridge. Or the leftover pizza. Or just . . . . you know, food.
Food IS good people. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise because, if ANYONE says food is bad, they're mentally unstable. I mean, really, mad to the maddest degree.

Food is awesome.

I miss food. It's been nineteen hours since I saw you last. Mmmmm food. We need to get back together sometime. Hopefully soon. REALLY soon.

In other news, Downton Abbey is kind of perfect for days like this. Mostly because you know they're preparing and eating food, but you can't really see it. Every time I watch something like Supernatural, I want a cheeseburger. Darn it, Dean! YOU AND YOUR DELICIOUS CHEESEBURGERS!!!! -_-

If for some bizarre reason I don't come out of this alive, I want this to be the image people remember.
Or, you know, maybe not but . . . yeah, maybe this one.
And I request a Viking-style funeral.
Unless, you know, I come out of this alive and unscathed, which they tell me is very, VERY likely.
So much for an adventurous surgery, right? 

 UPDATE:

I just got off the phone with my doctor and, apparently, there was an issue with a blood test result. Again, NOTHING MAJOR, they say, but they don't want to operate and want to send me to a specialist.  Basically this means that, again, my life has been put on hold.
As it has been since the miscarriage in June.
This was our last step, our final step, to being fully physically recovered, the last phase before the greenlight.
And now we're waiting again.
I know there's a purpose and a reason in all of this, but I would be lying to you if I said I weren't crying or filled with disappointment. I suppose it's better than a mess on an operating table, but part of me wants to call the doctor back and scream, "I"m willing to risk it! Just, please, finish this so I can move on with my life!"
But I can't because they won't.

She tried to perk me up by saying, "Well, you can eat now."
I don't have the appetite.
Not only am I filled with laxatives, but now I just feel sick in spirit. And no pints of my favorite ice cream can fix that. Not right now. Maybe tomorrow.

TMI or "Why My Uterus Hates Me"

"I'm not feeling very well - I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course."
--Groucho Marx

I'm just going to warn you up front: if you don't have ovaries, you probably don't want to read this.
Actually, even if you have ovaries, you might not want to read this.
Because I'm going to be be honest here, folks.
REALLY HONEST.
Also, I'm going to whine. I hate whining, but I love ranting. So maybe this is more of that. Strap yourselves in.
Or flee in terror.
Either one works.

Because, sometimes, being female just stinks. Not only are there all of our insecurity issues, our weird methods of communication, our reading into everything, our penchant for drama, and the presence of high heels, there's this bloody little hormone called estrogen, and, my golly, is it a party pooper or WHAT?!

I'm also warning you because I think medical stuff is fascinating. I mean, I was that student who went out and researched the Bubonic Plague because I wanted to know EXACTLY what it did to you that made it so terrible.
Besides, you know, KILL you.
FYI I still remember the major symptoms and all that jazz, so if you're worried you've contracted the black death, give me a ring. I'll help you out. ;]
So, medical weirdness, bizarre science, I LOVE IT. 
In fact, Chris and I have pretty much decided that, when I'm old and senile, I'm going to be a female version of Fringe's Walter Bishop--random amazement, too many wacky facts, love of the bizarre, and random food fixations. I'm going to be a ball in the nursing home, folks.

source
And, um, for just a second can we talk about how AMAZING Fringe was??? I mean, REALLY. SO. GOOD.
If you haven't watched it, go to Netflix, and watch it ALL.
I think I need a rewatch because I need more Walter Bishop in my life.
Rant over.
For now.

Anyways, back to the point.
The problems all started with our miscarriage back in June. I try not to think about it, but the truth is, it has left a PHYSICAL mark, not just an emotional scar. The emotional wounds continue to slowly heal. The physical ones . . . The just keep coming.
I mean, really, my uterus is not giving me a break.
Thank you SO MUCH uterus. You're a pal.

The Sacrifice of Safety

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I have the words "He's not a tame lion" stamped into a bracelet  I often wear. I adore words--these words, especially--and I wanted them near me at all times.

Mr. Lewis is one of my heroes--he has written stories that have clung to me since childhood. I don't think they'll ever let go, and I'm quite content holding their hands until my dying breath. It's a rare book that grows with you, a book that you enjoy at five--curled up next to your dad as he reads it aloud before bed--and again at twenty-five. I've gone through the Narnia series three times (it's time for a reread) and Til We Have Faces four. Each time, I take away something else, some deeper meaning, some new lesson that pulls at my heart. Sometimes, it makes me cry, and that, my friends, is a medal of accomplishment very, VERY few things earn.

So, when I decided it was time for something new, I ordered the bracelet, thrilled to see those words, "He's not a tame lion" embedded in the leather. Every Lewis fan loves the quote, loves it because it's true. 
"'Course, he isn't safe. But he's good." 

I used to wear those words because it reminded me that life was an unpredictable adventure.
You see, up until recently, my life had been very well planned. Oh, sure, there were things that didn't work out the way I had hoped--I'd still love, one day, to live overseas long term . . . and, you know, be a mermaid . . . --but, for the most part, things fell into place.

And then they didn't. 

And you know what? That's okay.
In fact, it might even be "good."

It doesn't always feel that way--sometimes, it feels very much the opposite. There are dark days and dark feelings, there are hurts and tears, but, in the end, there's something new.

Sometimes, you realize that there truly is something BIGGER than you at work. That the hard things HAVE to happen to grow you. If I run away from everything dirty and pinching and unpleasant, how do I grow? How do I become stronger, wiser, and gentler if  I'm not challenged?
To turn any lump of element into Art, it has to be chiseled, heated, and molded. Pieces are taken away and new bits added.  They are stripped away until they are almost unrecognizable.
Of course, they are still THEMSELVES. You can't take ivory and turn it to glass or transform clay into gold. They are always themselves, deep down. The raw element has simply been refined into something beautiful. It has reached its full potential. 

The pain is not the end.  The marks may remain, but we only pray that it's for the better. It has to be.

I know a woman who let pain grip her for far too long. She remains engulfed in her own victimization and chose to shut out and wound those who truly love her.  She locked away all hopes of happiness because she wallows in her miseries. She created a realm of glass expectations--if anyone inches out of line, her world shatters. So she takes out her little black book, makes a note in bold, bleeding red letters, and sees only imaginary flaws and her own pain. The world and those in it are stripped of their loveliness.   To earn back her favor is impossible. . Then she sits alone in her home and scoffs that no one comes to her door. She doesn't understand that she's chased them all away. 

I feel the pain, and I see two roads:

• I can feel it, I can hold it, understand it, weep with it, and then release it to Someone so much kinder, wiser, and greater than I. Then, it's not only mine, and He can open my eyes to beauties I never knew. Some things can only be seen through the lens of pain.
• Or I can wallow and make ticks in my little black book, close all the doors and lock away my heart because, oh, it hurts so much.

"He's not a tame lion."

I used to wear the words to remind me that there is an unpredictable "adventure in the great wide somewhere."
Now, I wear it because there is pain, but that is not the end.

"‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good."

There is pain.
And there is Goodness.
There is something bigger, brighter, and greater than I can ever imagine.
And sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, it tears you open, bleeding and weeping. Then you heal. Very likely, there will be pain again, perhaps from the same wound, perhaps something else entirely. Torn apart and sewn back together. Again and again.
We wear our scars. 

AND WE ARE LOVELY.

Our world has changed, and our hearts are beating with a new rhythm. Our pride crumbles piece by piece. We love deeply, despite the risk, despite the agony.

BECAUSE IT'S WORTH IT.

I am not safe. I may never be. To be safe you lock yourself and your feelings away. It's small, and it's dark, and it's lonely. But it's safe.

I don't want a life that is SAFE.
I want a life that is GOOD. 

And isn't that worth the price of pain?

Untitled

 If you are brand new here, I advise that you skip this entry all together.
By saying that, I've probably doomed you to read it, curiosity being the pokey, insistent thing that it is.
I ask you not because I am horribly embarrassed by the content. I mean, I am, a little bit. I'm a very open person, but I can never tell how open is TOO open when it comes to the lovely interwebs. At the same time, I do not believe that one shouldn't be authentic--I should not pretend life is all daisies and posies and sunshine if, in fact, there are thorns and thunderclouds.
I don't know about you, but, personally, I REALLY dislike blogs where they portray their lives as constantly perfect. Mine certainly is not. Oh, sure, I've highlighted the good stuff on here just like everyone else, but, sometimes, things are very hard.

I'm usually a cheery blogger. I've been told I'm quite funny, and I know that I'm quirky with an odd way of saying things. I find joy in little phrases and little discoveries. I love life. I love LOVING life.

However, this is not one of those days. We recently went through something very hard, something I've been very honest about. This entry is a continuation of that. I felt things inside that had to come out, and they are not pretty things.

If you do not wish to read something that sounds whiney, perhaps melodramatic, and at all sad, don't read any further. Go to the left sidebar and click the picture labeled "The Hubs" or "Misadventures" or even Friday's Letters. Those tend to be amusing.
Don't read this. This is . . . it's very unlike me.
Or maybe it's the really real me, and that's less pleasant than I want to admit. I haven't made up my mind yet. Are we truly ourselves when we are sunniest or stormiest? Do we really want to know?

I'm very afraid this entry will give you the wrong impression.
I'm not usually like this, really.

If you, however, are a regular reader or one of my family or friends from across the country, I suppose you can read on.

I'm very sorry it's not cheerier.

Wounds

There is a part of me that's not really sure how to do this.
If it's too early, too raw, too personal.
I promised I would tell you what what big things had happened, and I do like to keep promises.

First off, let me clear the air:
No one lost a job.
No one is sick.
No one left.
No grown person has died.
(The few friends and family who read this, if, um, actually, any of the above DID happen back in Florida, and I just totally missed the memo, please accept my deepest and most sincerest apologies, and I'll get right on blogging about that, too . . . or not . . . or . . . I don't even know . . . ).

It starts off, appropriately enough, the Friday before Mother's Day. The end begins, ironically enough, the Thursday before Father's Day.

I had made this for fun after our second positive test (I took three several days apart just to be sure).
We ended up using it a week after our seven week ultrasound--where we first saw a flicker of a heartbeat. We had, of course, told family shortly after learning we were pregnant. They, in turn, told friends and coworkers. One of my MIL's coworkers is the mother of one of my former students, who, after hearing the news, posted a congrats on my Facebook profile, which had everyone all "WHAAAAAA???" It was really quite funny. :]
In response, I posted this pic.
One week later, I took it down.

There's a part of me that's not really sure where to go from here. That maybe, that's all that needs to be said. That, maybe, I don't want to go any deeper. 
Things are just starting to feel normal again, do I really want to dredge that up?
Yes, I think I do. Maybe it has nothing to do with want and everything to do with should. Need.
I don't know.
It's there, crouching in the back corner of my mind like some starved rat, gnawing here and there when I least expect it. Scurrying into view, dark and hideous with those glittering eyes that I hate. Glaring down at me with the ache, the guilt--all of it. Hideous.
  It was something lovely, once upon a time. I'm trying so hard to make it lovely again. Sometimes, it is lovely--you see the little blessings blooming in the wounds. But they are wounds, and the geography of everything has changed.
They tell me that one day they will heal and scar, that I won't really feel them.

I believe them, and I do not.
Because, you see, there is a face I will never see in this life. A laugh I will not hear. I will never know if she favored carrots or broccoli, or vanilla more than chocolate. I won't know if he liked sports more than video games or if he looked handsome in the color blue. Won't that always be there? The knowledge that there was and then there was not?
They tell me that it is an ache that can be filled in time with another. I understand this, I do, but . . . there are all these "buts."

I don't know if part of the reason it clings to me is because of how it unfolded.
It wasn't all at once, you know. It was what they call a "missed miscarriage"--we looked for a heartbeat, the heartbeat that had throbbed two weeks earlier, and we could not find it. So we waited and  waited for it to end physically, understanding that what I held inside me was no longer living. That it was and was not.  That the one thing I had been so sure my body could do, it had failed. 

Our first ultrasound, the doctor had been very pleased, but I was nervous. Women  had told me that this was the moment when I would truly become a mother--when I saw evidence of a child. Instead, the doctor said I was measuring almost a week small, and my mind and heart could not rest. I was afraid. Two weeks later, I asked if it was possible for another ultrasound.  The doctor squeezed us in, and we found our child, bigger than the last time, but no heart. She sent us to the hospital, and, for the first time in my life, I understood why people hate hospitals. We were ignored, herded, then poked and prodded without a word. They told us nothing, but, when the pretty little tech offered me a smile with a weak, "Have a nice day" I knew.  I knew that look. Pity. The "I have bad news that I can't tell you; I don't know what to say" pity. So we went back to my doctor, and she expressed what I already knew but had hoped was wrong.  There was no heartbeat, none at all, and the child was two weeks too small. It appeared we had only lost it within the last three days, after my all day nausea had turned into violent illness that rendered me like the living dead--I could keep nothing down, not even fluids.  Now, I think it was my body's last attempt to flood me with hormones to keep my child alive, but I may never know.  It was over.

The doctor gave us three choices: allow my body to complete the miscarriage naturally, induce the miscarriage through pills, or perform a D&C.  We chose to wait, expecting it to be over within a week, hoping it would be. It wasn't. Now, I see that as all for the best--had it happened within a week, I would have been sick and cramping all during our trip back to Florida.  Had it happened while we were visiting the following week, who knows how long it could have taken, how sick I would have been?

We waited for over two weeks before we decided to induce the physical miscarriage. Chris would be heading back to work in a couple of days, and neither of us wanted me alone. On top of that, as the pregnancy hormones were depleting, my body could not handle the stress.  I continued to find myself ailing with different illnesses, one after the other. I may have been cheery in public, almost normal, as if I were barely grieving, as if it hadn't mattered. But, the truth was that the grief and stress were physically draining to the point that we were worried.
We called the doctor, and she came to my home to administer the medication.  I was at home with my husband, but there was a loneliness to it, an isolation that I desired in a way.  I was so tired. For 11 hours, I waited while my body began with a slow, dull ache that grew into what were, to the best of my knowledge, small contractions. Then it was over.  In an instant, it was finished, over, and I stood there in my bathroom, breaking because we had no where to bury it. It tears my heart open every time I think about that moment--that we couldn't even give our tiny child a the dignity of a resting place, that it was released with the sewage. I still cry, even now, thinking about that.  They tell me there was nothing I could have done, but the guilt plagues me. I couldn't even bury it.

I know this post is not my brightest or my wittiest.  In fact, it might even be dark.

The truth is, we are bright. We manage, and we go out and we laugh and we love and we live.  There is a closeness that comes from loss. It sweeps in an understanding of my own finiteness and the greatness of my God.  We were given something beautiful, something lovely that brought joy, even for a little while.
It was gone, and so much shattered. 

It had not mattered that I was the healthiest I had been in years, that I had researched until I could recite pregnancy websites. It had not mattered that we were thrilled.  Sometimes, I wondered if it had happened because I wasn't excited enough--that I had bouts of fear, of nerves, feelings that something was off. No, it couldn't be that.
It's not my fault, I hear again and again, and, yet, I feel like my body has failed me. I am only now regaining physical normality. I haven't felt healthy in two months.    I'm just now crossing back into that, back into regular meals, regular workouts, regular walks outside (I hadn't had those in so long, it seems, I was too sick and too tired), regular laughter and hugs and conversation. Regular. Normal.
It's not my fault, they tell me. It was chromosomes or something. They say it is better this way because, if my child had had a chromosomal imbalance, would it have been in pain? Isn't it better, for it to be in heaven, carefree and joyous, waiting for me? I agree with them. I have to, or else it is too dark to find the light again.  With this hope, there is such light. Nothing is lost forever.  And, in that, I sing. I am not lost. My child is not lost. It's just absent,  waiting.


I didn't want to post this to be depressing. I suppose it is, in a way. Death is never pleasant.
And it was a death.
This was not a tumor or a mistake or a bundle of cells that suddenly ceased to exist. It was a child, our child. It didn't have a name, not yet, but it was a child. It had been alive--we'd seen the heartbeat, once, a tiny little flicker in a bean-shaped shadow. Light dark light dark light dark, so very tiny.  We were only nine weeks along when we learned it wasn't alive any more. I would have been fourteen weeks today.  I still count the weeks. I can't help it. You think about what could have been. It was a child. And then it died. There was a death. We grieve for a death, for the infant we will never hold. We rejoiced in its life. We thank God for the little while we had. We were not afraid, and we are not afraid now. Of course, there are worries, concerns, for the future. There always will be. Still, my God is bigger than all that. He gives and He takes, and I am so small and so loved. 

If we look, we find beauty in all of this. Chris and I are closer--we have learned how the other mourns, how to cling to each other. How to cling to Truth that is SO much bigger than the both of us. God is good. In all things. There are relationships opened--shared pain draws people together so much more than shared pleasure. I learned how much we were loved, how much our child was loved, by friends and family far away. We felt the prayers--we so needed them.  We could find joy in our days.
I'm not saying that there were not bad days, that there aren't still "dark days" on occasion.  Two nights after the last ultrasound, I melted into a pit of anger, of bitterness, and the next day I couldn't get out of bed. I was so tired, so hurt.  But it doesn't end there. It can't.
There has to be light somewhere. We may never understand the why or the how, but we believe there is Light. There \has to be. Or else what point is there?

I had heard a quote once in a children's movie, but it was something so sad and so beautiful it hummed in my mind long after the film had ended. It is, in fact, from a book by an author I adore, and it is no less beautiful and honest in print than when it is spoken:

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
--(Lemony Snicket from Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

We had taken a step where we could not see, and we slipped in "dark surprise."
We readjust, we stand up, and we continue though we limp a little in the beginning. Perhaps there's always a whisper of a limp, but we keep walking, climbing, talking, laughing, living, loving because there's light. 

There's always, always Light.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, 

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

 the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 

yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; 

he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.
--Habakkuk 3:17-19a