Every once in a while I get these phone calls from my mom and she will tell me lines from a song she just heard, or something she read and how she thought about me. We've been trading thoughts like this for years, random e-mails, little instant messages, phone calls, etc. I will write to say I love you, to say I felt something beautiful today and thought of you. She left a poem on my bed in High School one time called "The Warrior is a Child." My family has been pulled together lately (even more so than usual) because there are certain things trying to pull us apart. (DISCLAIMER: this in no way is me being super-spiritual or pentecostal, just vague, ok continue). This got me thinking...
Why do I get goosebumps when I hear something good? Why do my eyes begin to water when I see something on TV? Do I have to be moved by such a simple lyric in a song? It is actually quite embarrassing. The fact that I do it often does not help either. Surely you do it too.
Maybe it is because we catch a glimpse of what it means to live. Maybe, just maybe, we are realizing that we are but a fractured piece of the whole. We feel the hope of something greater.
Or maybe it's just me. Maybe my dreams are too big and my fears are too small. Maybe my heart is too soft and my skin not thick enough. Maybe my eyes are blind to the things I cannot see and my ears only listen to the whispers being played.
If I could say one thing to you it would be this:
I wish you could hear the melody that is being sung to you, that has been sung to you since that day. It isn't a song of rejection and of hurt, nor pain. Rather a song of love, of pride and acceptance. I see the pain you live with but you don't have to. You wake up and there are storms, lightning rages and the thunder rattles everything you thought you knew. As with all storms, this one will pass too. Your existence was fractured and it hurts, I know. I felt it too, and the rage and pain still flows through me freely. There's no difference between you and I. We both dream, we both fight, we both hurt and we heal. I wish you could see you are loved, you are treasured. I wish you could see how strong you are, too. Please believe, not only in yourself but in things not of this world. I don't know the root of all your pain, perhaps only a fraction of it, but please know this, that we are fighting for you. We all are. We won't give up on you, because that isn't what we do. I know it hurts and you think nobody understands. Perhaps we don't. I do know one thing, you woke up today. That is enough: breathe. fight.