It’s been a while since I’ve actually punched letters into this digital papyrus.
I’ve started several entries. And shelved them.
None of them felt like they could possibly summarize the complete turmoil and amount of emotion that I was feeling.
And still do.
More remarkable humans gone. Leaving us here.
More questions about why this world seems to grab the ones that love and give so quickly…and leave behind the dregs all too often.
This world is chaos right now. It feels like the “bad guys” are winning on every front.
Justice is not only blind…but mute…and deaf…and hogtied…and rendered unconscious.
I’ve been silenced by the volume of it all.
Volume in two meanings.
The sheer amount of emotion and things and the complete and deafening loudness of how it has all happened.
I’ve looked down that chasm again a couple times…in really hard moments.
A tether was severed. And when I thought I was working with little to no safety net…another was formed.
You saw it all.
You’ve got company there. Amazing company we all could really use here too. But it’s easier for me knowing that that company can let you know exactly what’s been going down from another perspective.
She’s always been that last safety line.
Always.
That and the promise. Only now that thread shines so much more brightly.
You’d be so proud of her Mo.
She’s found her “groove” right now. She’s on the path. I see so much of you shining through her every day. Everyone that knew you sees it. It’s eerie at times, but in a wonderful and warm way. Bittersweet.
She took on the strength of others too.
They’re with you now.
A few weeks ago she interviewed me about a “dark time” in my life for school. A very cool concept of talking about how the human spirit always manages to conquer through that darkness that seems to envelop us from time to time.
That darkness I’ve felt and so many others feel lately.
That was hard.
Really hard.
I remember thinking as she asked me these bombshell questions…
How much do I tell her…how much do I hold back?
You were there with me and told me to tell her everything.
Open up and don’t hold back.
It’s a lesson she will take with her.
Her Dad. Vulnerable and exposed. But defiant. And trying. Trying his damndest to figure it out.
I hoped she took that away after the interview as she looked at me reduced to sobs slumped down in my seat. Head on my desk.
I hoped she saw that I had felt it all…but was fighting through it. That we can do that.
I could only hope.
This past week she stood in front of her entire class and all the parents at Open House and spoke from her heart. I had no idea what she had written.
Her Poem was chosen as the first one to be read. Because it had apparently reduced the teachers to tears when they heard it. Not just the words
…but the delivery.
I didn’t know this until her teacher came up to me to tell me this. Giving me a hug in the process and saying to me…
“Thank you for sending your daughter to this school”.
How do you respond to that?
I couldn’t.
I just sat there humbled and said “Thank you for guiding her.”
And probably some other words I can’t remember now.
Here’s her poem…
This is her delivery at school…with her full opening line. To hear this from her mouth…seen through her eyes…no words…
She amazes me every day.
I promise I’ll try to speak through the volume more.
There’s other rays of sun coming through too. Making me want to write and do more.
Powerful…and unexpected…
But good.