From day one, Emily has been ‘talking to me,’ through me, and one of the things that she has consistently said is, “Mama, you can’t even imagine the things that are going to happen,” meant in the best way, of course. And no I couldn’t and no I can’t. When the worst thing in your life happens, you can’t imagine that anything good can ever happen again or that anything is meaningful anymore. Or even that the sun can rise.

Yet Emily has consistently proven my ideas about going forward with no hope, no happiness, no future wrong. From devastation of the most profound kind, she has brought daily graces that have added up to this bevy of abundance and purpose. I couldn’t even imagine. Every day, I have laughed at least once and often more (the same goes for crying); every day I have had meaningful connections with people, many of whom have become close or closer friends than I could have dreamt; every day I have gone forth with kindness and blessed someone’s life, no matter how small; every day I have gathered satchels of seeds of things to be grateful for, and each day those things bloom into this garden of blessing that has come from the passing of my beloved. It makes no sense. I know that this is exceptional, and I know that this does not happen for everyone. I am well aware that many of us experiencing loss need months and years before we can even begin to become close to what we were before.

But what if we challenged that, and decided we don’t need to be what we were before? What if there is nothing to get back to? What if there is only going forward? Through some act of grace, I was given this deep resolve that going forward on tippy toes or hands and knees at times, was the only way I could take. I’ve been crawling and falling and sometimes walking, but always getting back up and finding that the forest has more than one path, and I’m willing to take the one in front of me, even though I don’t know where it is taking me. To me, this is the definition of faith.