Just when you think that you are ok and you realize that you have been ok, and for a while. You start to smile and come out of that shell of a hole you had found was your safe spot. Stretching your arms and feeling the heat of the sun on your face. You are not hiding anymore. You realize that life isn’t that bad, even though it’s different. You may even wish the lost one a happy day and blow them a kiss. You know they still exist, just in a different realm of existence. You may even feel strong and be surprised in your new found strength and realize that you are healing.

Then just like clockwork, the storm clouds rush in and scare you back into your hole, but this time you aren’t going to cower and hide. This time you are taking shelter but are not burrowing yourself in. You are not going to allow yourself to go that deep into the hole. You have seen the sun, you have felt its warmth, and you know it’s beyond the dark clouds just waiting to warm you with its rays of love and happiness. The sun is peace. You want that peace. You want to stand in the sun and allow its rays of light to wash over your body, to penetrate into your soul. You need that sun.

You decide to stand out of the hole. You decide that you are going to stand in the rain and the thunder and the lightening so that you get all that the sun has to offer once those rain clouds have passed. You crave the sun so much that you are standing in the storm with your eye on where you know the sun is, just beyond the darkness.
While standing in the storm, you realize there is danger and it is wet. It’s uncomfortable, but it has not destroyed you. The lightning flashes close to you and you stand tall. The taller you stand the more violent and close the lightening becomes, almost as if it’s driven against you on purpose. It wants to see you hide, it delights in your fear. You don’t give in to the threats and you remain sure footed. Thunder sneaks around you and spews the enormity of its most dreadful clash, startles you and hurts your ears, makes you jump right out of your skin. Then you remember thunder can’t do anything to you. All thunder is, a warning sign of how far away the lightening is. The lightning flashes are the real danger. So you use the sounds in the darkness to gauge your safety from the swift light. You start to use the storm against itself, you tell the rains to rain harder. You turn the storm on its side, it begins to rain like it has never done before, you challenge it to become more fierce and it can’t bring the destruction that it imagined. You are stronger then the storm. The storm realizes why you are stronger than it is, then it sees it. It’s the sun, the storm thought that it was hiding the sun from you. The storm didn’t know that the Son is in you. The storm starts to cower because it knows it has been defeated. There is no winning for the storm and you begin to drain it of its power. It loses its steam and starts to diminish.
As the storm begins to dissipate into small screams of defeat, the flashes of floods become sparingly drops, to finally a springy mist. The clouds break apart and you can feel the brightness of the sun become overpowering. It’s not the contrast that makes the sun seem so much brighter than before, the sun is shining brighter upon you because you weathered the storm. You stood through it, you challenged it, you threatened it, you used authority to dissolve it, you allowed the storm to see that you are filled with the Son and nothing that it tried could form a weapon to come against you. You showed no fear, Only Victory. The Son awards you with a Rainbow.

The rainbow is a message to your soul that all is well. That all will always be alright and there is a delight awaiting you that you cannot imagine or fully embrace while dressed in earth’s clothes. He gives two things for my soul to take upon this earth, one is the rainbow, the other the remembrance of her smile, the rainbow in heaven.

This story is a parody and reflection of recent things in my life. It has been a year and a half since my daughter died. The journey since then has been one of discovery and deep filled sorrow. I would find the strength to stand in the morning, with my happy face and be burrowed inside my “happy place” which was a place of pure numbness. I filled myself with so many worthless things trying to fill myself up from the depth of the hurt. I started to become an ugly person. I gained so much weight in the last year and a half. I allowed so much misery and soaked it all up with cheese and a bottle of wine. I would make myself sick at night, constant eating. Stuffing anything and everything that I could find into myself. I would wash it down with whatever I had. Beer or wine was preferable. If neither of those, I made coffee and stayed up half the night. I began a habit of soda, I have never had a habit of soda. I prided my former self for never going down the road of sugar drinks. Compiled stress and overeating, thinking I have lost my mind – because of all the gaps that were now in my head. There are parts that I cannot remember. Parts of my brain went under attack and must have been a causality of war because I cannot remember simple things like, where did I put the birth certificates. To make matters worse, we moved three bedrooms at the same time. I was so obsessed with change. I didn’t realize that the outward appearance of our home does nothing to heal if I am not taking care of the inside of who I am as well. I was so obsessed with the appearance of everything. I was so pained with the sting and the hurt and the finger pointing. I was so stressed with my life as I knew becoming scary dark and different.

I did realize yesterday driving home that life is, ok. The inspiration for this writing. Just as I realized that I have been ok, the tears started to flood in, I was overwhelmed by emotion. That is a victory. Stay with me, I used to be controlled on my emotions. I would stuff them down, and I was using whatever I could to hold them down within me. I was burrowing them and myself from the reality of the world. When the “storm of emotions” came yesterday – If I were out in public, I would not have been able to reel in my tears. I would have shown the world, that yes, in fact, Kelly cries. She cries over missing her daughter. Wow, she really is human… just checking. Next time just pinch me ok!