Sometimes I used to think that my happiness would go on forever just as it was. The summers we lived in, Karen, Toby, Luke and me, would never fade, nor would we ever lose possession of that beauty.
The heat of the sun on us. Just hanging out, doing this and that. Little snacks. Jokes and a few games. All quiet on the Western Front, me ol' China. Death was not there.
I just thought things would never change.
Until of course we worried about diseases. What would happen to them when they went out on their own. And they did face danger. Muggings. Bullying.
But it seems so many times I relaxed in the thought that the happiness of summer, the calmness of Christmas, and Easter's crazy hunt for chocolate eggs in our back garden, hidden by the laughing hands of Toby and Luke's mother, would never end.
Playing balancing games on the huge log in Highgate Wood.
These things haunt almost every empty space of my mind. Haunt me when the sun is hot, and the sky empty of all but blue infinity. When Easter comes, and there are no eggs to hide because there are no children to hunt them. When Christmas presents, let alone stockings hanging on the mantle piece, now mean nothing, because the light of the world has gone out for us.
I have little hope and less faith now. Without hope and faith, there is no love, and therefore no beauty, because without love you cannot see or feel beauty. It does not exist for you.
I know. Each of us has a lake of tears inside us, and until time has a stop, most of that lake will remain stagnant, infertile, and a burden unbearable except we have faith hope and love.
Even just that little bit of hope is important. I'm sorry you feel such despair 🙏❤️