I dropped the littler girls off at school this morning; the sight of Avery slinging her arm around Fin’s shoulders, and Fin leaning into her undid me. I watched them walk, their bright raincoats like carousel horses, bobbing up and down. Red, aqua, gone and then back again. I held my hand out the window in case they turned.

So much of what I do is in case…a note in the lunchbox in case something happens to me. A whispered I love you in a sleeping ear, a fervent wish to make it echo for years to come in case I’m not there.

I’m not sure why everything feels so potent today, tears nipping at the corners of my eyes a persistent lump in my throat, and the tell tale sting in my nose as I switch the song as a sob pounds on the door.

I read you need to write every day, even if your words falter and a darkness blooms, and so I’m here. I’ve gathered ribbons of words from others, maybe written to cheer themselves, maybe for someone they loved.

Today I offer them here, for us. Draft off them, leap from them, quiet your hurt with them.

Hope

 

Light

 

Soul