By Nancy Virden (c)2012

Her home was empty.  She sat with ever-present memories to keep herself company, and to wish for happy ones. Try as she could, pleasant remembrances were elusive, and minute after minute she saw the faces of those who were no longer here.

Pains ran through her body accompanying sobs from she knew not where. Pressing in around her, and especially near her shoulders, was an anguished heaviness she could not describe. In her middle stirred fear.

How will she go on to tomorrow without them? Yet she had endured so many such days already. There was nothing like Christmas to bring the hurt to the surface, and to get the old film reels turning. Some loved ones had passed away. Others had walked out of her life, deserting her with recollections that were growing harder to retrieve.  A few people had been gone for decades.

How will she go on without them?

Outside, children played in the snow. She watched one bright-eyed boy in particular as he flopped himself down with ease onto his back and started gliding his arms and legs wide then back to his body. An angel. She was certain he was an angelic child, sweet to raise. 

Sigh. She thought I wish I had a little boy like that.

Her mind roamed to her family tree. Grandparents, great-grandparents, and all the great-greats took her back to the 1500s when her genealogy research had ended. Then it hit her. All of these people she wondered about, each of the ones for whom she longed, everyone had something in common.

They were gone. Gone! Their lives were part of her past, and if she could say, “I have a past,” it meant she was here now.

It was an epiphany. People who had been here had their chance at life. Some had made decisions that blessed her, and others caused her harm. What now?

She had decisions to make, the most foundational of which was who did she want to be? Did she want to remain the lonely, depressed, woman who sat alone during the holiday season? If she wanted to be a different kind of person, one who celebrated her own chance at life, what step could she take today toward becoming that person?

Activity outside her window had not stopped.  Donning her coat and best snowman-building gloves, she walked outside to meet her next-door neighbors.

-COMMENTS WELCOME

Today’s Helpful Word

Psalm 39: 4-7

“Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is…

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.

“But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

If you are feeling suicidal, or concerned about someone who is, in the U.S. call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, or for a list of international suicide hotlines, go here.

If you are suicidal with a plan, immediately call 911 in the U.S. or go to your nearest emergency room. In the EU call 112. (For other international emergency numbers, go here ). Hope and help are yours!

Always the Fight Ministries (ATFM) has been displaying compassion for those fighting mental illness, addiction, or abuse since 2012. Nancy is the founder and voice of ATFM and openly shares her emotional resurrection from despair. NOTE: Nancy is not a doctor or a mental health professional, and speaks only from personal experience and observations. In no way is this website intended to substitute for professional mental or behavioral health care.

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