My Prayer For My Children

Autors note: The past cannot be changed.  This is not an examination or editorial on mental health but a love note of strength to anyone looking to rebuild. 


“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.”

- Virgina Woolf

I'm a passionate person who feels very deeply and too many times in my life I've experienced unimaginable pain, loss, depression, anger and hurt. There are times I've let it get the best of me, and there are times I've gotten ahead of it.  I've fallen down the rabbit hole and I've stumbled into some dark and lonely corners of my brain that were better left undisturbed.  I've sought help and I'm an enormous advocate for intervention - whether that's medication, therapy or both.  

This week I watched a group of young adults attend a funeral for one of their own.  The pain rippling through our community is crippling.  One day my own children will be grown and they will face pain and loss of their own and I will have to explain things that I'm not even sure I myself understand. I look at those sweet little babies and I know that they too will have their hearts broken and their wills shattered.  They will face disappointment, anxiety and loneliness. They will learn that their lives are nothing but a culmination of their own choices and actions, and that choosing wisely is sometimes left to hindsight. They will face consequences and I will have to find a way to articulate that you just have to somehow, someway, keep going - always, no matter what.  

There are times in life when it is supposed to hurt like hell, when that pain is a natural sign that you are making changes, moving forward after loss, figuring out how to make your life go differently. Life will at some point deal you a hand that will forever shape the way you view the world.  We don’t choose this - it just happens and maybe you'll find comfort in knowing that it happens to everyone, that suffering is not a unique experience.  If you cheat the process by burying that pain, by pretending it didn't change you or by hiding in a distraction you will miss out on the opportunity to be the architect of your own new design. 

Suffering is a guaranteed part of life so prepare yourself my friend because it’s a mother-fucker. The world will be unfair and tragic and ineffable.  Life is messy, relationships are complicated and the human experience can feel exhausting.  But “the earth has its music for those who will listen.” I have screamed out in anger at God and I have felt the still hand of God on my shoulder when I've needed it the most.  If you allow it, if you are patient, life will also show you beauty. It will be kismet, full of goodness, generosity and wonder. You will find humor and kindness and grace. Love will always win.

Some people when faced with life’s tragedies become warriors.  They understand that “fair” is a child’s word and they take ownership of their own journey.  They are proactive in their desire to heal, to learn, and to move forward with a hope and a certainty that propels them though even the darkest times. They sift through the rubble and they rebuild. They find themselves again.  We cannot always see their scars but they’re there, and they are awarded with an inner strength and a wisdom that cannot be purchased, borrowed or stolen.  

You will not always get a choice in what is thrown your way, but for a short time you will get a choice in how you react.  You get to choose how you respond and in turn then how you let it shift you, and what you will take away from it. If you close your eyes and pretend it’s not there, you are no different than a child covering their eyes during a scary movie.  Not wanting to see it does not make it any less real – it’s happening whether you are ready to face it or not.

If you allow the darkness to rule, if you shut out possibility and love and feeling, if you stop fighting when life calls you to step up, you will eventually find that you’ve created a world ruled entirely by what you were running from; pain. There are no answers in darkness, it's just darkness, and it will fuck with your head.  

A word of advice: no one ever wins a battle alone, and to think that you can is naive.  There is no prize at the end of the road for having traveled it alone and there is no trophy for carrying the weight of the world along the way with you.  This does not make you noble or strong it makes you foolish. The strongest and wisest of people know how to ask for help, and when to offer it to others.  

I do not pray at night that my children will never feel pain.  I pray that I will be capable of teaching them how to cope, how to ask for help, how to offer help to others and how to reconcile events that have no answers, only infinite questions.  I pray that when life deals them their own shit deck that we will have given them the tools that they need to pick up and begin again. I pray that they never stop rebuilding.