In June of 2016, my family changed forever when my ten-year-old daughter passed away. She’d had a lengthy battle with cancer, and while her treatments had been successful, they had also damaged her lungs beyond repair. The average person would say this was reason enough to be surrounded by darkness.
I didn’t see it that way, though. For a while, I thought I was doing A-OK. No darkness here. After a long fight in the hospital, and an expected passing, I felt that my daughter’s death was the natural way of things. I told myself that everyone had a story, and my daughter’s story was always meant to close at the age of ten.
This form of denial—one of the recognized stages of grief—didn’t last long. A few months passed and my grief hit me like a ton of bricks. Darkness was all around me, and I wasn’t sure how to drive it away. Completing normal daily tasks took gargantuan effort, and I thought regularly how much I hated life.
During this time, I soldiered on. I spent time with my family. I went to work. Not only that, but I also did things I’d typically enjoyed in the past—writing and reading books, traveling, and practicing my faith. As you may have guessed, or even experienced in your own situation, the darkness remained.
During this timeframe, I also found myself expecting a new baby. It was a hard pregnancy, and I ended up in the hospital more than once. When my baby was born and I took him to his two-week checkup, he was discovered to have a heart issue. My fragile spirit felt completely broken with sorrow for my children.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but the darkness became even darker. I couldn’t understand why these things were happening. It wasn’t that I expected to be exempt from troubles. I’ve always been a firm believer that the sun shines and the rain falls on everyone. No one can avoid pain, no matter how we wish it were so.
Rather, I couldn’t reconcile why nothing was working to help me out of my despair. I tried spending time in the sunshine, gardening, traveling, laughing, praying, and serving others. I tried and tried and tried.
On a popular social media site, I had created a “board” of favorite memes. They were all in the vein of Alice In Wonderland. I felt like my world was upside down and inside out, and I was just surviving for the sake of survival.
Where had my life gone? How had I ended up in the twilight zone? How could I get out? I no longer recognized myself or my surroundings, and everything felt wrong.
Throughout this journey, time was passing. Two years, in fact. During those years, our baby son grew out of his heart issue, and though dealing with life had become more stable, the darkness persisted.
At this point, we received an invitation to a dinner for bereaved parents. Many of our daughter’s nurses and doctors would be attending, as well as other patient families we had gotten to know whose children had also passed away.
My initial reaction was to turn it down. How could I subject myself to that kind of torture? It would only remind me of my darkness or even make it worse.
But weeks passed, and something deep inside me nudged me to accept. I fought this small voice until I couldn’t fight it any longer. I reached out with an acceptance.
The night of the dinner drew closer, and my nerves ramped up. Should I go? Dare I?
I held fast, though, and on shaky legs walked into the room where I saw so many familiar faces. These were people who had loved me and my daughter; people with whom I had spent hour upon hour; people I had not seen in two years.
I burst into tears. Suddenly, a light had switched on. The darkness wasn’t quite as black.
We had a lovely night at that dinner, and though it took a couple years more, it marked the beginning of a steady path toward light. Going to that dinner made me feel as if in one tiny way I had my daughter back. Her life was being acknowledged, and I was sharing a meal with people who fully understood the extent of what she had been through.
In the months immediately following this event, I began to realize that my question of, “Where had my life gone?” wasn’t a fair question. My life was still here. People who had loved me and my daughter were still here. I was still me. It was only that in the darkness I couldn’t see it.
Today, I would tell others who find themselves in a similar darkness to take a few different steps. First, don’t give up hope. Second, do give yourself more time. Lastly, seek out the very people you may think you should avoid—sometimes they’re the bearers of the light.
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