annus horribilis

It has been over a year since I have written here.

And what a year it has been.

Tremendous loss, both public and private. I confess that I can no longer take in the news much for my own heart’s protection. But I can’t help but think that in every loss splashed across the news, there’s so much to each dear one’s story that we weren’t even aware of. I know this because of my own lived experience. Be kind, be kind, be kind, my dears. You never know what that human across from you might be enduring today.

I have found it somewhat disconcerting to watch the whole world plunge into the upending of reality that started for me a few years back. So many certainties shattered. Time shattering to a stop and then reassembling in an absurd mosaic that never quite makes sense again. This, I know well. Before the specter of coronavirus ever rose its ugly head, my family began to experience the utter insanity that is chronic illness. It doesn’t make sense. It is terrifying. It is loss after loss. It is losing friends, and activities, and all manner of things. And now we watch the whole world wrestle with it. It is an odd feeling. Having lived through what we have lived through, I find myself fighting cynicism and bitterness for our wider world- uncertain that they will find any easier of a journey than we have.

For every headline I think of the massive medical bills that will show up after that dear one’s death, at the worst possible time. For every choice, thousands and thousands losing their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes.

And yet, and yet.

This year, (and every year), every moment…belongs to God.

This is what I can say, having walked in the darkness, even in my cynicism, my bitterness, my despair, for every moment I have felt lost, alone, and abandoned: I can recount to you just as many, if not more, times that the Light has poured in through all the cracks. The warmth of friendship, faith, and kindness. The ones who have caught us as we tumble and set us back upright. Perhaps even more importantly, the ones who got right down in the dirt with us and cried right alongside us as we mourned.

This is what I can say: Hold on. Trust. Breathe.

You are loved.