There’s no one to call. Nothing anyone can say. My selfish response is to picture my own two children safe and sound and count the seconds until I can clutch them tight to me when I pick them up from school as if to warn Life, “You’re not taking mine!” But you will. You’ll have a date set aside for all of us no matter who we are, where we are. That’s part of the deal.

Distraught I escape to the altar in my yoga studio and stared at a painting I did not long ago entitled “One Child… One Family”; it’s all I hope to give with my life. Help. It doesn’t stop the inevitable result of living unfortunately, but I hope it makes the moments we share on this planet better. For my child. For me. For all of us.

As parents we invest it all. Not just parents of children with special needs who put their own lives and needs and relationships on hold to become a warrior/ teacher/ guide/ advocate/ supporter/ confidante/ bodyguard/ researcher for their own, but all parents who sacrifice to give everything they’ve got. It cripples me to think of this child’s parents today. The indescribable loss.

This is not the end. I have to believe there’s more. Instead of sinking into the despair of loss, we have the choice to rise above. We impact each other’s lives for a reason. A wake up call. A soothing reminder. An opportunity. A lesson learned. A bucket of laughter. A broken heart. All of it.

Struggling with a way to honor this beautiful soul today, I envision his bright, magnetic, loving, white light energy living within me, radiating from me… to light my path and possibly touch someone else along the way.

Picture a person holding their breath through a difficult pose and you see how I have been getting through the tough stages of my life. Enduring it, but fighting it. Any beginner to yoga will tell you- yoga is the breath. It’s not twisting yourself up for a couple minutes while your mind wanders and then moving on. It’s a spiritual journey of being present and diving in. I didn’t know that. In truth, after 35 years of my on-again-off-again love affair with the practice, I don’t think I’ve ever truly embraced yoga until now.

I’ve spent my whole life searching for something (or someone) to make me okay. My Catholic upbringing didn’t do it for me. My love affairs didn’t fill the void. Neither did friends, food, fashion, movies, art, marathons, literature, alcohol, work, gardening, philanthropy… you get the picture. Fill in the blank- it didn’t make me feel whole. Only now do I see the equation more perfectly than I ever have in my life. Those things are all wonderful and beautiful, but they exist outside of me. I never knew that everything I ever needed exists right here in me. Right here in the breath that I seem to hold captive. I am enough.

Near my bed I keep a worn metal bookmark a friend gave me years ago that says “Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength.” Ralph W. Sockman. Every so often I look at it and peace swells within me.

During a life changing reiki session yesterday I learned that I was drawing strength from the wrong places, the places of fear. I wasn’t being courageous, I was reacting to the panic of imagining the worst possible outcome. From there I raised my fists ready to fight and lived defensively while the days stretched into weeks and then months. And here I am. Tired and sore from being on the lookout… for what I am not sure.

As I search my heart I think about what it means to be in hiding. Years ago I hid my feelings away and trapped myself in a type of shame that left me powerless. On the outside I felt that everyone was trying to crack the code, find my secret and expose me. It was an “us against them” type of scenario and I had to stay on top of things. What pressure for a young girl. My paranoia inspired me to lock as many doors between me and other people as possible.

As I settle into my skin years later I search for the keys in hopes of opening myself back up. Now I see so many parallels between my past and Hope attending school. I tell myself that I am not shoving the same type of secrets down her throat that rested in mine for over 20 years, but I still struggle sometimes. I’m not taking her away from her life, telling her to hide or teaching her about shame. I’m celebrating my daughter for who she is just the way she is. Doesn’t everyone deserve some level of privacy in their life without feeling that you have to answer to the world for who you are or where you come from?

Released from the burden of worry, my clarity is overwhelming and powerful. And my heart feels bursting with love. How did I move so far from this place? More than ever I feel my hope for the future radiate through me and spill from my fingertips as I write. Beaming yellow light burning brightly as a new day begins with gratitude and I open another door.