light of a new day...

people used to tell me in a life frought with daily drama and travail...adopted into a strange place by ultra-conservative euro-american family, the last child of four and the only brown skinned human for fifty miles..."it will all look better in the light of a new day" i think it was my aunt dorothy who first told me this...i'd gotten into some kind of scrape with the cousins and while they all danced past with a mere shaking of the head and a frown my adopted mother took a more severe view of the childish pranks we'd undertaken which was usually the case. in the aftermath i was left a sodden mass snuffling pitifully into my sleeve when my aunt dorothy found me and hugged me...a painful hug, for this was the nature of my adopted mother's discipline...and she smiled at me (aunt dorothy) taking my chin with her smooth cool hands and looking deeply into my eyes..."it's okay, you'll feel better tomorrow in the light of a new day"

This is where all hope sprang from in my youth...and this is what i share almost daily with my children, my friends...those around me in the midst of chaos and trauma...this is not a vain hope grasped at with desperate clinging fingers. this is the strength from which i faced my future every single day of my life during those years. and from time to time in more recent years.

oh how i wish to look into the future when i'm gone and wouldn't it be nice to see my children passing this strength to theirs?

and to my friend in the midst of her personal tragedy and grief...how i wish i could hug you and bring you cups of steamy green tea...if i were with you i would sit silently by and listen to your sorrow and cry hot tears of deep empathy for your pain...i don't offer words...for therein lies empty promises and hollow platitudes...

i only offer you this...each new day brings you and yours closer to Healing...each new day brings the Light a little more deeply into your beings...each new day is Hope.