I just came in from sitting on the back porch while a soft rain came down. My rocking chair was the tiniest bit damp, I'm wearing my oversized zebra-print robe and snow boots, and my neighbors might think I've lost my mind. Thunder came rolling in, and a few lightening bolts lit up the sky as I sat. My baby was napping. My dog was on my lap. It was raining.
Today, I had other plans. Plans with a good friend to travel and venture and drink coffee and laugh. The rain storms changed our plans a bit. Instead, I'm home. In my robe. Hair still wet from the shower. Boots now wet from the rain.
In a few short days, it will have been two years since my Dad took his life. Last year was like treading water while trying to smile. Paddling and breathing through all of the firsts without him. First Christmas. First birthday. First anniversary of his death. Trying to smile, trying to suck in my breath and hold it tight, trying not to let "it" overtake me. Last year at this time, I was extremely pregnant, holding my breath that my very first baby would not make her arrival on the anniversary of my Dad's death. I laid very still that week. I held my breath. And, nine days later, I let out a sigh of relief when she was born on her very own, special day.
This year has been different. There are no more firsts. The sharp, sucking pain has dulled, and hearing words associated with death, Dads, guns, funerals, etc. don't make me blink as hard. My family has been brave and vulnerable and honest, and we are moving forward. All of us. In our own ways and yet as a collective unit. You can't plan or predict to have to absorb these kinds of experiences. How could you?
Kind of like the rain today. Not part of the plan. But I don't know if I'd appreciate the days where my plans fall into place, when the sun is warm and inviting, when friends are available, when family is healthy and happy, when I close my eyes at night with a sigh of satisfaction and fullness...I don't know that I'd appreciate those delicacies were it not for the contrast. The contrast of the rain. The dark. The hard. The times when you feel pushed into a tunnel so deep and so narrow that you don't know if there is a foothold or an escape or a light source.
This year, I think I know what it is to be on the other side of my very own tunnel. Yes, there is still rain. Sometimes I suck in my breath. At times, I can't blink fast enough to keep my cheeks free from tears.
Included in my most treasured book of all time (Katherine by Anya Seton) is a quote by Julian of Norwich, an anchoress who lived in the 13th century. She said:
"Our dearworthy Lord said not, 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted', but He said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome!'"
We were never promised a life without rain, without darkness, without seemingly endless tunnels.
But how blessed we should feel when the rain stops, when the darkness turns to morning, and when the tunnels lead outward and upward...to light and day and promise.
Because the rain is part of it, too.
Because the dark is part of it, too.
And the tunnels are part of it, too.
So is the promise of a new day.
To that promise I will hold steadfastly.
Because that promise?
That promise is part of it, too.
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