Some moments stay with us for a lifetime. Some sentences never leave us. Words of love that come at life’s hardest moments are stored in the folds of our hearts in case we ever need them again. Often tucked away, each letter holding onto a piece of a memory that will live on forever but cannot possibly be sustained on the surface. Words that find their home in our hearts until they are called upon to remind us that we are quite literally held together by love. And love will get us through.
For me, those words came many years ago as I left the hospital empty-handed, without my beautiful first-born baby. How had so much changed so quickly I thought as I moved through the hospital hallway, down the elevator, and through the doors back out into the world. Just days before I had taken this same journey heading the other direction, full of excitement, imagining how this walk would be. Son in my arms, wrapped in the blanket that had been hanging on his rocking chair at home, next to the book I had bought to read to him and the music I intended to play as he fell asleep each night. Now, I was merely moving as one leg pushed in front of the other. My husband in front, my mother behind, and I, somewhere in the middle - until that moment when I stopped and turned to look up at the window.
I was looking up from the outside at the window that just moments before had offered a beautiful view of an English Oak and filtered a gentle beam of sunshine on his face when all was still well. I was looking up at the window to a room that had once seemed like a postcard on the inside; a celebration that I had tried to put into writing in announcements that were now left. Incomplete. And so, I stopped and turned back to look up at that window, so that the truth of it all might sink in. So that my mind could see that the room did exist. That it wasn’t a dream. This was happening. I was on the outside now, looking in.
And in that moment, my mom’s words affirmed what I already instinctually knew I had to do: That’s right. Look back at that window. When I think of that time and that moment now, I find a certain strength and courage in these words that have never left me. I remember how painful it was to turn and look one last time, but I also know that in looking back, I was taking my first step in looking forward. This did happen. I was there. He was real. Love is real. And eventually, over time, affirmations would be added - I got though.
We never know what side we will be on, but one day, when we look back through the windows of our lives, we can know one thing for certain. We can know that the spaces we filled, were filled with love. That is what I choose to remember. That perfect beam of sunshine.