The path I walk is not always a light filled space of illuminating proportions. Sometimes, the shadows slink and push out the shine, leaving me to wonder if I will ever feel whole again.
It is in those moments that I doubt almost everything in my life. I say almost everything because it is also in those moments that I become acutely aware of all that is completely precious to me. I never doubt the love of my little family. My husband and my son have the ability to cocoon themselves around me and remind me of all that is beautiful in my world. They have the strength to shine their light over my dwindling windblown candle flicker of a wispy flame.
April is my month of shadows. It is the month that starts whispering to my heart sometime during the last breath of March. While the world is waking up and beginning to celebrate the light and the growth that comes with it, I linger in thoughts of death.
This year feels particularly harsh and perhaps I am feeling it all so acutely because I am recovering from a rather nasty case of stomach flu (is that just too much information?), or perhaps it is because of the timing of Easter this year. This all sounds rather cryptic doesn’t it? Perhaps a little history is in order.
Nine years ago, my sister died on Easter Sunday. Technically, it was a few days following Easter Sunday but Easter Sunday was the day that she had the seizure that rendered her brain dead. At the time, I was hosting the last Easter dinner I would ever put on my table.
Four years ago, I gave birth to identical twin boys on April 5th. We named them Eliot and Henry. Eliot died in my husband’s arms in the neonatal intensive care unit 12 hours after he was born and Henry died in my arms, chest to chest and heart to heart, 19 days later.
It turns out that death is one of the most defining moments in my life and I often wonder if I see the light so clearly because of the shadows that mark my heart. When people discuss my photography, they often marvel at how I capture light and I know that how I capture light changed after I lost Henry and Eliot.
Henry died in the wee hours of the night and we collapsed so deeply into ourselves that going home was an impossible thought. My parents booked hotel rooms a couple of blocks away from the hospital. My husband, son and I laid on the hard beds staring blankly at the shadowed ceiling, only rising when my parents would knock on the door to take us down to the restaurant for food. We stayed that way for days until it came time to leave for our home.
It is with such clarity that I remember walking outside that late April day and being astonished at the green grass, the bright blue turquoise sky. But, mostly, I remember the light and the way it poured over everything, stinging my eyes with brightness.
I am sad and in that doubting place but I am sure that it is more than okay to allow myself to remember and to hold that tender space for myself and for my family. I take my camera out and follow the shadows even as the light threatens to engulf me with its beauty.
Photo Credits
“finding light” © Darlene J Kreutzer
i wish we were sent into life with more understanding about hardship… or that better things could be said when others share such tragedies… love and violet&gold rays to you sister… something to light the shadows… x x
Dear one, Darlene,
I am curling up next to you. I am part of your cocoon. I am pouring LOVE all around you–to fill your shadows with warmth.
You ARE the bravest woman I know.
So much LOVE for you.
dar, this was heartbreakingly beautiful. Thank you for sharing your light and your shaddows. They are both defining and important. I have such feelings of adoration and respect for you. I hope you can feel my love from all the way over here.
Darlene, when you share your life stories you open up the gates to our love…thank you and bless you.
xo
I followed the link from LIz’s blog today and am so grateful I did. I know how much determination it takes to find the light again after wandering in such darkness. I, too, had a baby die in my arms in the intensive care nursery. I had another die, a few years before, in a hospital where he had been transferred because it had a NICU when I was still confined to a different hospital. Finding the light after such profound grief is an experience of grace. Blessings.
Your words brought back memories of my own loss. Thank you for writing about it: the astonishing light when you finally rejoin the world after shutting up with grief. It seems blasphemous doesn’t it, that the world cannot stop while you make sense of what just happened?
Having your child die in your arms changes you utterly and profoundly. That you are able to capture the light at all is a testament to your resilience. Once again, thank you.
I am thinking of you, Darlene . . . I can’t imagine the heart wrenching grief you have endured. I hope that your beautiful path of light heals you. I hope that the love for your sister and sweet babies encompasses you instead of sadness. You are loved by so many . . . I hope you can open your heart more to that, and let more light in.
I hope you are feeling MUCH much better after your stomach flu, too. xxxooo
Dar,
I wrap you up so tightly in a huge hug. Please Know you are in my heart and are not alone. I love you. I’m glad you shared this, another evolution of you.
You are so brave. So loved, so wonderful, so YOU.
we’ll chat soon, xoxox MBB