Now.

All I have is today.

This is my truth. It is a truth I have been told all my life but it is not one I could fully grasp until this moment. Many messages from here and beyond have conspired to help me understand this today. And, like most truths, it is truly an aha moment. It may or may not last, but the potency of this present understanding feels…welcome.

Many many things are too big to take in fully. This is like that. And yet I strive to have the humble wisdom to breathe this in fully. Because it is all that I truly have.

There are piles of books on my nightstand and on my bookshelf that espouse this message and yet, those books did not bring me to this moment. Months and months of tenacious therapy with my wise and gentle counselor telling me that I needed to make a choice to truly live or to merely survive this loss, did not bring me to the presence of this moment. Looking into the eyes of my beautiful boy, in a photograph of us together and so happy to be so, also did not call me into this moment of my life where I choose to declare with all that I am, today and only today, that I choose life. All of these things, and so many more, helped me arrive here. Love, pain, fear, the great expansive void of loss, and time were all contributors, surely they were.

But when you are standing on a ledge, a ledge you are certain can no longer hold the weight of your truth, a ledge you must leap from with faith, or stay attached to and risk falling, it is only you who can choose– no book, or encouragement or self bullying or big love from all directions can actually decide for you. Only you can choose.

I choose this moment to live fully in this moment. To release myself from the pressure of not knowing how to move forward from loss, not knowing how to release my grip on of the past, both the worshipping of it as well as the beating myself up for it, and letting go of the need to know what I could’ve done or what on earth I will do now. I surrender myself fully to the holiness of now.

Ironically, in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, following Isaac’s death, all I could do, all I could handle was one breath at a time. The wisdom of the body knew this truth, yet I saw it as basic survival/coping mechanics, as a departure from long term self preservation~ as fight or flight instincts. Now, eleven months later, I embrace it with greater understanding as the only way I can be. Not because I am broken, but because I have been opened up to a greater capacity to see into nooks and crannies formerly obscured by an underdeveloped heart.

I believe I can say with simple certainty that grief allows you previously unexplored access to yourself. This is what I know, now. And it is everything and yet, so simple, it is almost a travesty to have to go to such great lengths to learn it. Id rather have Isaac here than to know this, to be certain~ but I will say that, having it is in its own strange and fascinating way, a generous consolation prize, if such a thing can be articulated without sounding flippant or new agey or bonkers. I would truly rather have this than anything else on earth– but if Heaven were included, Id rather have Isaac. And that is… something that cannot and perhaps should not be exploited with these silly words. And yet, I feel that while I cannot offer this to anyone, because it lies within us to discover on our own (I believe!), I just want to let each of you who ache or worry for me to know, that today, I feel certain, that I am going to be ok. Today. Right Now. That is all I can say for certain. I am finding my way right now. And whatever that means is ok with me.

It is easy to catastrophize (i think thats a word!) and its easy to want to plan, especially when it seems at times there is rubble all around what used to be your life. But thats all just a story. The truth is, those who love me deeply, for whatever blessed reason i am grateful for everyday, have held “it” all together for me, waiting for me to pick “it ” up when Im ready. And wondering if I was ready, and wondering if I would ever be ready, was freaking me right the fuck out. Having to know my next move, my next step, causes way too much anxiety, but feeling stuck is also really uncomfortable. Recognizing, and surrendering to the great and powerful now is utterly liberating. Maybe theres more than this, maybe not. But right now, I am alive, with a song in my heart. And for this, I am grateful.

Of course, I would arrive here in the 11th month, as Isaac was an 11 guy with an eleven message on earth as it is in Heaven…