It All Comes Rushing Back Again

When they stole my children, they stole my life. Nearing three decades later, the breath still gets sucked out in a rush...that moment of discovery the only milestone that still has the power to dissolve. Have you ever heard a boxer land a power punch on the heavy bag? That sound is pure velocity - the same force that even now can make me wobble if I don't see it coming.

I could say I forgive; I could say I understand. I'd be lying. If I could comprehend why, would it free me? Would it loosen even a single knot that binds me, allow me to love without fear of loss? Could anything now undo the devastation that like a tidal wave began with that theft, washed away continents of love and hope, wiped clean the ground I would walk forevermore...that still today ripples out of nowhere, leaving happiness treading water and feeling for the shore with leaden feet? Will every wave portend catastrophic flood? How long does one have to be safe to believe it? Can I never be safe unless my life is restored to me?

I never wanted as much of the world's riches as I've had before. I never wanted more than I deserved, more than anyone could ask for...I only wanted, like Job, my son and daughter restored to me. Was it patience I exemplified, or defeat? It wasn't faith, unless certainty that ill winds bring further plague is evidence of faith. The boons of reward have been many, but the world's largesse can never bring back the life that was taken.

Late in the third act, heavy fog still threatens in the distance and the same fear and loss lay like ponderous clouds on a shelf of imagining. If I am to find freedom, how will I know it? If I am to be covered in joy, how will I see it? Will it come like the wind and I'll know it by the cool whisper, the kitty-paw breezes that tuck and dart and softly caress? or by the bounding, spread-eagled puppy feet of winter freshness that jumps up and covers with love?

Even when I think I see the rainbow, I find it difficult to call out to the leprechaun. I stand, instead, and wait in awe for color to settle its vivid mantle all on my shoulders and lift me to the skies.

I don't know why they stole my children, why they killed my life. I may never forgive, or understand. I breathe so that someday I might recognize redemption if it comes: to see my babies' eyes shine, to know their smile is mine. If I believe there's any reason at all to move one foot after the other...it's nothing more than this: my babies loved me, and I love them. They may not remember, but I do and it haunts me. I want them to know it was true, that it never wasn't true. That the taking, and everything that followed, was never a choice I had any part in, that I could change, or undo.

It's not that I don't think I could forgive - it's just a path I never faced. It never felt necessary or promising. Wrapping my soul around it now, it almost pains me: an act of betrayal, of disloyalty, of denying that primal heartbeat that still pounds. It's in the pictures never taken but envisioned with such bright clarity in my mind's eye, the moments only I saw, that only I can remember, but that are no less real without photographic proof.

They may forgive, they may understand. They have their own peace to seek, and I so deeply believe the truth is the elemental part of that. I've worn it in my skin, tattooed in brilliant blue, through all the years that came after. Pain is like fire, but it's hope that cleanses, love that resurrects...and I've kept mine safe all this time. My talisman is a vision I couldn't be sure I really had, but it buoys me up - a hand, a smile, a hug that can't quite end.

I learned to live again. I'm learning to love without fear. But some days, it all comes rushing back again.