Childhoodtake2!

It's starting to get warmer now. We have turned a significant corner in our part of the world and although there will still be cold days and a storm here or there, nothing will stay long. We will have more warmth than cold, more rain than snow, more light than darkness. We have passed the darkest hour.

"And I actually need you, in my darkest hour."

There will come a point, a period in your life, when you will lose a tremendous relationship. It may be a breakup, it may be a move, it may be a passing. It may be a friend, or a significant other, or a family member, or a parent. It will be a loss, it may be a season of loss, it will all feel unbearable.

During a season of loss, you cling. You think backward. You cry, you mourn, and you cry more. You only think of the good that was there, you get angry, you think of reasons why you are better off, you think of reasons why you cannot move on, you linger.

I have been in a season of loss. Loss of love and light. Loss of balance and good. Loss of words. It is my year of change, and I am trying to accept and move forward with it. But, as I knew it would be, change, for me, is hard. For me, change, all by itself, already feels like a significant loss. It already feels like I am having to move in directions I and I alone am not ready to go. So I am in need, and without a light to guide my way, I have reached the darkest hour. I do not know if I will weather every storm, I do not know if I will always navigate myself out of darkness, but I do know that you are watching. You are listening. You are taking notes. You are attentive. You are building tools and reworking your notes. You will use this as your compass when you find yourself lost. Alone. Entering your darkest hour.

I know you too will be here. I know you too will feel loss. I know you too will feel lost, and alone, and it will feel like you are the first one to have gone through this. You will feel like no one can or will ever understand. But let this serve as proof that I, and most of us, have been here. You are not alone. I will stand with you, during your darkest hour.

And I promise you this, I will not judge. I will work on holding my tongue. I will not offer up advice. I will not advise. I will try to barely talk. I will ask very few questions. I will not share stories of how or when it happened to me. As hard as it will be, I will not tell you how I would handle it, how you should be handling it. I will just look you in the eye. I will hold you close. I will just be there.

"But what if I need you in my darkest hour?
And what if it turns out there is no other?"

I will just be there.