For so many years I felt as if life was just about getting up every day, existing just until another night of the haunting dark hours. I would be still in the dark, fighting with all I had to stay awake. Why could I not just close my eyes? That meant the return of the nightmares. I would feel the quiet all around me, and remember that for so many years those hours were not safe for me. You listen for the creek on the stairs, the lights going off and the house falling into silence. This is a memory I know I share with others, all be it a slight variation on my own situation. We are haunted by our past. At that time in my life, I never knew the sheer joy that was to come into my life altering it forever.
I sat this evening with my two year old Grandson asleep next to me; I have never felt more elated to be here on this side of life. He loves me for who I am, with a pure love that has no bounds. My past can only take this from me if I let it. I look at his sleeping face and the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the innocence, the trust he has in life. His small hand tightly in mine, just where he had put it. For so many reasons I could have missed this miracle of life.
So I say to all of you out there thinking that life is not worth living, that only the bad things in life ever happen to you. That somehow you can only see dark corners and shades of black. Look to the future. Some years from now you will be in a situation such as mine, and you will be glad to be alive. Keep getting up every morning, because one of those mornings not too far away in your future…. life will take your breath away.