To My Village

There is a lantern in the corner of my mind. I would like it to be shining on a snowy field, lighting a stand of graceful Fir trees, and a horse with a jingle bell collar pulling a sleigh full of over-the-top happy people. (Off to Farmer Gray's birthday party for sure.) Trouble is, they're predicting 70 degrees for Christmas Day here in Virginia - which just isn't right! But we'll deal with it, and hold the dream of a White Christmas, letting the lantern shine on.

Shine on - throughout the village. The village full of my peeps, the family and friends who are all around me - some near and some too far away. All sorts of people live here. A rainbow connection with multicolored people of different faiths, shapes and sizes. Ours is a village full of differences. A village of happy and sad people and people who are just plain in-between any such extremes, which make up the majority, I suspect. The people who color our lives, and those who keep us all on track.

The Holidays, we can agree, are especially a time for children. (We've all been there once upon a time, and that's how we know). And this brings me to the part of my village who have lost children.
It brings me into a kindergarten class full of children, not my own, singing carols, or O'l McDonald or whatever, and the sound of the childish voices that always make me cry - long before my own child was lost. It's just a thing with me. I cry when I hear children singing. It's especially true now.

There is a time to cry. Sometimes alone, and sometimes surrounded by the village. And it's all okay. We'll stop crying when the time is right, and no one knows when that will be. But it will happen. And the village that has been there through the tears will be there to celebrate our new-found happiness in a new-found, and brave new world.

It will happen. It happened when I took the first step into that new world I hadn't asked for, and I realized that I was entering a changed reality that offered new paths to explore, and I had the rest of my life to contemplate and explore everything about that strange reality.

The landscape is different, to be sure. I am different. But I'm alive - with a whole new life ahead of me. And it will be good because, with the help of my village, I will make it so.

That's how it starts.

I've found that it's a decision to remember life as it was, and to seize life as it is now and join it. The black shroud I covered myself with in the beginning was calm, warm, nurturing, and I guess I could say, comfortable. And it was necessary for the healing to begin. It was a dark and sad place. For me, it was not a place I wanted to stay in. It was too sad. I wanted to be away from it, to shed it like a wet, wooley, too tight skin. So, I took the first step out of it, as so many others have done, leaving the depressing cocoon on the ground.

At first I felt nothing like a butterfly. And there were many times I wanted to crawl back in. But my village called me out.

Slowly I began to see beyond the emptiness I had imagined lay ahead, to the roads that lay ahead, gleaming in the weak sunlight that peeked through the branches of winter trees. I noticed that the asphalt on the road ahead was warm, and I took another step towards a new life I surely hadn't asked for, but it was the only one I had.

There were people waiting for me. My family was there and as I walked towards them I realized I loved them fiercely - my friends were there too, and I found I wanted to be with them. I wanted to join the world, to share all of their lives and be a part of them. My life expanded with the realization of how VALUABLE they all are. My love for them expanded as we reached out to each other, and I vowed I would protect and love them all like a ruffled mother hen! My kids have since eased me out of that thought, but not entirely.

Out of my loss has come the realization of how precious all life is. How tenuous. It must be cherished with the single-minded fervor of mother tiger, but just don't let the others know you'll pounce to protect it at any time. That can be scary.

Instead, I'll hike through a canyon, climb a mountain, swim across a river or write a book. I'll reach for all there is. Because life is precious. And if I want to dream of a white Christmas now or in July - I will. I will dance and I will sing anywhere I please. I will try things I've never done before - except sky-diving. And I expect my village to be there too! Skinny dipping anyone?

And when we've all recovered from that euphoria, you may rest assured that when, and if, you're ready to be pulled out of a cocoon, I will be there for you as you have been there for me.

I wish for my whole village, wherever you are, whatever your beliefs are, or are not, the love, peace and joy in my lantern light of Christmas, and join me in raising a glass for all of us when the clock chimes in the New Year!