These days have been dark ones.

I dressed Daisy in a manner that would cause me happiness when I look at her…opposed to not getting her dressed at all. I decided if a toddler is going to whine at me and wipe snot on me and pull at me and demand shredded cheese in a bowl and spill the cat food for the thousandth time, she better at least be in a tutu and moccasins with a little old lady cardigan sweater.

I got the neighbor boy to walk Max to school so I didn’t have to wake Noah up before nature would. I put on some music and considered doing all the mundane housework that I completely gave the middle finger to yesterday. I couldn’t be depressed in my house for one more minute yesterday morning so I texted Alena “you home”…she was. I walked the two kids in the stroller over to her house and sat in her mess for a few hours and she breathed a tiny bit of life into my depleted soul. I stayed a little over an hour and walked back to my mess. Put a movie on for Noah, laid Daisy in her bed, even though I knew her cat nap on the walk home was going to prevent her from having a solid afternoon nap. I climbed in bed and melted. The rest of the evening was an extension of the morning.

Today I want to try. Shelly is taking me out tonight and I want to have dinner made for my 7 kids and I want to pretend there’s a fun time in my future, and that it matters. I want to pretend to be looking forward to something, instead of holding my breath and waiting for bad news. Always bad news. When you receive bad news enough in your life, your brain and your body have a way of waiting for it and looking out for it and listening for sirens and watching for strangers near your home and getting up to make sure the doors are locked after everyone goes to bed. Call it whatever you want. It is part of being close to “bad things”.

I wasn’t at church on Sunday because I was serving Hard Cider samples at the West Reading Farmers market, a tiny part time job I’ve been using as an escape. When I got home around 1 PM, Chris shared a clip from our churches worship service. The worship leader was talking about the Henry Longfellow poem “Christmas Bells”. He explained the background of the poem…that Longfellow was done seeing any goodness in the world. His wife had recently died and his son had been paralyzed in the war. All he saw was hate and darkness everywhere. Upon hearing the bells on Christmas Day he was stirred to remember that hate and darkness are the way of the world, but WE are called to be the hope, the light, the difference. If we, who believe in an eternal, life giving God can’t see the goodness in this world, how can we expect the rest of the world to? “God is not dead nor does he sleep…”. The song “Christmas Bells” that followed has never meant as much to me as it did right then. I wish that my brothers murder were the only sadness I am battling this season. Layers of pain and disappointment and trauma are being stirred into this foul poison that threatens my quality of life everyday. I struggle everyday to find the hope. The purpose. The meaning of any of this.

While putting away some dishes that were sitting on the counter this morning, Daisy approached to hold my knees and cry up at me…I picked up two spoons and started tapping them together to the beat of the music. An effort to distract her. She silenced, watching. After a few moments I hand the two spoons to her. I grab two more and I start tapping on her spoons with my spoons, to the beat. She’s smirking. I stop. She starts tapping her spoons together, not to the beat. I hold the interaction. I stay with it. The goodness. So much of what I do here feels meaningless. It feels like I could blow away and people might not notice till the house gets messy enough and there’s no dinner. But right now, while tapping spoons with Daisy, I have to believe that I’m still here for a reason. Even if today feels so monotonous I could just go to sleep…even if the thoughts of my brother being murdered won’t leave me…even if it’s been the hardest year of my 17 year marriage…I get to tap spoons together with a smiling toddler in a tutu and moccasins and a little old lady cardigan sweater…and it might not seem like much…but I’m grasping and reaching and looking for the goodness today…cause I can only have so many yesterday’s to feel depressed and sorry for how bad things truly can be. Today I’ll look for the goodness and if I can muster the strength, I’ll try to be the goodness for someone else.