A little light

When I started this journal three years ago, I had this clear intention to somehow be a help to some parent who needed to know they could keep living after their child died. I didn't account for how hard it would be to even put words on the page because some of the thoughts I've had over the years seemed so dark. 

When I'd sit down to write something honest, but positive, well, it ultimately seemed too dark to share. I remember sitting with parents who had lost their children ten, fifteen, twenty years before, and some told me the pain never goes away and some days they feel exactly the same as they did the first days of their loss. At the time, I couldn't imagine living another decade or more with that same pain. I couldn't bear the thought. Losing Evan felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I know. Cliché. But there is just no other way to explain the pressure on my chest where my babies used to lay their sleepy. I had to stay away from those parents for awhile because the thought of that future made me not want to have one.

So many, maybe too many, ideas I've had these three years either never made it to the screen or currently fill the white space in unpublished draft form only. I could share them.

I'd given myself an impossible burden on top of the grief.

Be honest and be an inspiration. Or at least be a bit of light. 

But the fact is, not having Evan alive feels dark and heavy some times. Most of the time. Not all the time, but more than I wish. And sometimes, my chest aches. And my back aches. And on his birthday, I have muscle contractions. Because nothing about this is light. 

This is not to say that the feeling of grief has been the same for me since July 2018. I am better. I carry this grief differently. I feel a little more sane. (Admittedly, I am not totally sure what sane really means anymore. But I feel like I am walking in the same reality as most other people. Not something I could have said four or five years ago.)

In church today we ended the service singing This Little Light of Mine, a song that will always transport me back to the wooden pews at Pilgrim Baptist Church sitting next to my granny.. Little me imagined a light in my chest that I carried around everywhere. And what wildly empowering lyrics. I'm gonna let it shine. The light was there, right there in my chest, but it couldn't do anything unless I allowed it to do something. For a 70's kid who was often told, "Stay out of grown folks business" and " Children should be seen and not heard" the idea of little me having that kind of agency made me sing the words at the top of my lungs every single time. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!

Now here I am. A grown woman. A granny. Praying to just keep the pilot light in my chest burning from day to day. Hahaha who was I to think I could shed, share, or shine, let alone be a light. 

At this point, I am happy to just be. I'll write more. I'll share more. But my only promise is honesty. I can't promise to be a light, but I will keep being.