the kindred project: day 8 (a birthday)

The Kindred Project: 12 Days of Light and Yes is about sharing our stories of light and hope. The moments where we said "yes" to choosing beauty in the midst of it all. The moments where we stood in our own light. The moments where we saw someone else choose hope. The moments where another became our teacher and where we taught ourselves. Read more about the project and share your own stories in this post. During these 12 days, I am sharing a few of the lights along my path that have pushed me and taught me and held me in the midsts of it all. 

*****

2010 :: 2011

As she sleeps down the hall, I think about how this time last year I had lost a sense of time and was deep inside a bravery I never knew I had within me. There was such joy and pain to come in those next few hours, days, weeks.

And there is so much I want to say. I want to tell you about the fear and beauty and laughter. I want to tell you about getting lost and forgotten, then standing tall as a mother in a way that had been within me all along. I want to tell you about the cracking open and the stitching it all up again only to have life leak through. 

Side by side we are healing and laughing and living it all.

May it always be like this, even when she stands farther away on her path and lives her own dreams into reality. May we always see the laughing and the healing and the love.

More stories to come, but right now there are presents to wrap and I need to remind Jon to pick up the cake and the sky is so blue and it is so warm outside and I can hear her calling me. We have some living to do over here.

(Homework: Close your laptop, turn off your phone, and go do some living of your own dear one. You deserve it.)