I know you're here. Somewhere.
I caught a glimpse of you a moment ago.
MJ and I were playing with his plush soccer ball. He stopped, looked down, and said "Pentagon." I laughed.
Marveled really.
"He's brilliant," I thought. I said it aloud too.
We continued to play.
The plush soccer ball got stuck in the mini basketball goal knocking it down.
I watched as MJ, with a small basketball in hand, struggled to pick it up. Over and over he said, "Oh my goodness!"
I smiled.
Before we headed to his room to play, we had dinner. The Cajun sausage and rice skillet. Again.
Without finishing his food, MJ said, "All done, Mama. All done."
I felt a spark of pride. From his communication and the title. "Mama."
The truth is that I have been in grief over the life I imagined. At each difficult turn, I interrogate every decision. "If I had..." has ravaged me leaving regret and discontentment in its path.
And you? Dear Precious Joy, you've felt unavailable. Transient. Like a lover who has forgotten - or maybe never known - how my life and body craves your presence.
Why have you been so quiet lately?
Something deep within me - maybe it's you - whispers, "Be still and know."
I bristle. Quiet and Certainty, surely your kith and kin, feel just as elusive to me.
You ask me to see you in everything. To feel your hand in mine at every step. You tell me you are as natural as every negative emotion and much, much softer.
I hear you saying, "I'm not gone. You just forgot how to see."
I pause. Stunned. Is this too a humility thing?
MJ just loudly announced, "I feel so mad! It's okay."
And I see it.
He feels every emotion and lives in none. He moves through them moment by moment, and that's why you, Dearest Joy, radiate from him.
Wow.
Unless I turn around and become like little children, I will never truly live in your presence.
