My journey through the dark

This time last year the doctor's were telling me that my little Preston had holes in his heart. It's a funny feeling walking a line between joy and sorrow, courage and fear, hope and despair. I remember thinking that I was just so fucking inadequate to the challenges being set before me. I looked into my little guy's eyes and I didn't have anything I could promise him. There was no guarantees, no whispered assurances that were good enough; it was all so big, and I was just so ill prepared for the seemingly insurmountable trek in front of us. I remember begging God to show me the future. I wanted so much to know there would be an end to the nightmare. If only I could catch a glimpse of Preston in front of his first birthday cake, happy, and healthy - alive...then maybe I could face another day in the dark.

But there would be no easy answers, no promises made to me by doctors or God. I faced everyday as though it were his last for the first six months of his life, and the sadness faded. I hadn't expected that. But every new moment, every new day I was granted with him became...enough. And I know how cliche it all sounds...But the world is like crystal now. Clear, and beautiful, and easily shattered.

Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..." And this was the context of my life for an endless brief period of time. Never before have I understood the ironic contradiction that is life so fully and completely.

Did you know...that the dark can illuminate your path?

My darkness did...and for a moment I could see through the eclipse, and it was so terribly wonderful.