Light is beginning to fill my house this morning. From my bedroom I can see it creeping up the stairs coming for me but yesterday began with little light. I am not that woman that likes to look into the past too often. This year my motto has been Pa’lante which literally translates to forward. I have been working towards becoming a better woman so that I can finally sit happily in my skin and just be. So, when last week a very important man from my past wrote me again on Facebook I hesitated writing him back. I sat for a minute trying to decide if responding could lead to pain the answer was yes but then I remembered a prayer I had made a year ago.
Dear God, please help me get past this block I have about losing Isabel Grace!
That prayer was made when in an otherwise ordinary moment I was brought to tears when “Ribbons Undone” by Tori Amos played on my iPod. It reminded me of all the things that I did not have because my daughter was not given a chance to live in this world. It was one of those early mornings in which I spent a lot of time angry at myself for looking back and writing about my pain in my journal. Then I decided to post that song to Facebook almost instantly deleting it off my wall followed by a search for “him”.
“He” is the man that fathered my daughter. The kind of man that many women pray for and not as many are lucky to have in their life. “He” was the first of two exceptional men that will always have a significant hold on my heart. I didn’t expect him to be on Facebook but my heart said search because I was hurting and I wanted to know if he ever thought of her. I found him. Sent a friend request with a short note which began a series of messages back and forth that seemed distant. In some of these messages we both admitted that we regretted the lose and both still hurt over it. It wasn’t the closure I had hoped for. It was almost a sterile exchange. Our communication seemed awkward.
So. When last week out of the clear blue many months since we had last written “he” wrote I decided to risk the pain of communicating. It took strength on both of our parts to open up, to be vulnerable, to be completely honest and to say the things that the ego might hide. During one of the exchanges I almost froze in fear because I was about to say all the things that I had left unsaid for fifteen years. When I did hit send it felt liberating. I read my words again and I told myself something that comforted me and allowed me to hold my head high.
That is your truth! You don’t need anyone to validate your truth but you do need to tell it!
For hours I went about my day knowing that my truth was out there. I felt liberated and was able to hold my head up high but I was scared. I went about my day hurting thinking that my truth was out there and yes, it was only one person that would read it but shit, I hit send. I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t undo it and I wondered would him never responding hurt? Would him not responding clearly be a sign that God was not going to help me out with my prayer and that my healing would be left to my own accord?
Right when I had given up getting a response but decided that I wasn’t going to sit in that pain of lose any longer he responded. It isn’t easy for men to open up veins and talk about their emotions. It isn’t easy for men to talk about problems they can’t just fix. It isn’t easy for men to open the door for hurt especially when they have been hurt before. But like I said “he” is an exceptional man and his words helped me get so much closer to healing this pain I’ve carried for fifteen years. Pain I thought I was carrying alone. His words helped me realize that through him, through me, through his children, through my children and the separate families we created Isabel Grace lived on. It wasn’t that I didn’t already know that but it was the way he said it that made the difference.
Today, as I watch the sunshine fill my house I think of a promise I made to my daughter while she was in my arms. I sit here knowing that is the final step I must take to let go of the pain so that it turns into power. As I sit here I know that I’ll be reduced to tears again many times over when her spirit fills my soul but I don’t sit here alone. No matter how many years pass. No matter how long ago it was. I now know that both of her parents created her out of love, wanted her, love her still and consider her a blessing.
Endings sometimes are tragic but that doesn’t invalidate all the beauty that came before the pain!
