Dancing in The Rain - Learn to let it go

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass ... it's about learning to dance in the rain ~ Vivian Greene

The storms, I have waited for more than my fair share to pass. When younger, I fought them.  I am now older and wiser.

I would wake to another day of despair. Another day of wondering how I got here and how I would get out. I woke thinking of the boy who broke my heart. The young woman that strengthens me. The little one who keeps my heart beating. The man who has loved me unconditionally and the girl whose suffering has taken my soul, the one who brings the storm.

I had wonderful memories and a happy life. I had known love, affection, happiness and contentment. I held on to those memories. They gave me hope. Hope that I would someday have them again, and I do.

In some ways my life is like a tragic novel. In others it is a story of determination strength and hope. It is a story of motherhood and all the hopes and dreams that we expect, but should not. Some of it is quite funny, some of it is just sad, much of it is just unexplainable. All of it makes me who I am.

The boy that broke my heart. He was 17. There had been a car accident. He was not my biological son, but he was mine. I loved him as mine, I raised him as mine and I miss him as mine. The unexplainable. He died six years ago September 9th. That is the official date but his actual death was a week before when his soul passed through my husband and I as we we stood in the hallway of the ICU. It was an electrifying breeze that went through us, and we knew. Unexplainable - how could such a young, talented and sweet soul be taken - it will forever be the most painful moment of my life.

Regrets come with loss. It's the little things. I still cannot pass his bathroom and not feel regret. Every morning he would wipe toothpaste on the sink and throw the towel on the floor. Every morning I would yell at him. Now, I would give anything to clean that sink and pick up that towel. My daughters bathrooms are a disaster and I couldn't care less. I've learned to let it go.

The young woman who is my strength. She is twenty four now and finding her way. I admire her. She has such compassion and depth. She makes me laugh. Through all the difficult times she could always make me smile. She has been through so much. She lost her father at eight and she lost her brother who was her best friend at seventeen. To say she was devastated would be an understatement. Somehow, she grew strong and optimistic. Youth I guess. A young life with so much sadness and confusion. She has grown into an amazing, independent, successful woman - she is happy - she is a joy. She learned to let it go.

My heartbeat. She is sweet and fragile. In some ways she has been through more than all of us. She has lost her childhood in a sense. She has known loss, heartache and faced the storms way beyond her fourteen years. A lot like her older sister, she is beautiful and kind. She is still the one with her brothers picture under her pillow. She is the sensitive one. Despite it all, she has found a way to overcome all the adversity and thrive. She is once again happy, outgoing and just being a kid. She learned to let it go.

The storm hit without warning. The storm affected everything in its path. The storm raged inside my child. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. She was healthy and happy and mine. She was different. No one else saw it, but I knew. A mother just knows. She is sixteen now. She is brilliant, not just a good student or smart but brilliant. Her life has been a series of doctor appointments, blood work and brain scans. She is tortured by her illnesses both physically and emotionally. She grapples with the irrationality of her life on a day to day basis. She is a prisoner of anxiety. She has faced the storms. At times I would say she has even provoked the storms, but she is outrunning them. She no longer harbors the bitterness and anger of being chronically ill. She is getting better. She has hope. Hope is the mainstay. Without hope there is nothing. How does she find the hope - she's learning to let it go.

On some level, happiness is a conscious decision. It is the decision to not feel guilt over things of which we have no control, to let go of regrets, to be happy, to intentionally seek the good in life and people. Accept what you are given and never give up hope. 

With the acceptance of who you are and of what life has brings you comes the change.  Life's hardships change you, they can change you for the better, its all up to you.

Life is too short.

Learn to let it go.

While we waited for the storm to pass ... we learned how to dance in the rain.