{the.wednesday.whistle}

dear Mikki and Katie…

i can hear my Grammy Young saying it now…her voice never a distant echo despite the fact that she has now been gone over 10 years…i can hear it like she is standing behind me, her hands squeezing the back of my shoulders almost too tight, her rings digging into my summer sun drenched skin, kissed with water droplets from the lake. . . “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, Honey….” She gently spanked my swim suit and sand covered bottom, giving me a push towards, at that time, the deep water of Sandy Shores Pond, and then went back to her chair on the beach reading her mystery novel. one eye peeked up over the page, her book a disguise for non concern. (it’s funny how swimming where your feet can’t touch the bottom is a profound metaphor for life. i never realized that until just writing it.) years later, the lesson of the the deep end long since forgotten and surpassed, she would say it to me after my first real high school break up. my head buried, body folded, into her body like i was still 7 years old, snot running down my nose, crying through the non-breathing that heart ache causes….she was stroking my long hair and rocking…she said it over and over, as if repeating the words infused me with a strength i had not previously possessed. (it did).

life is painful and tragic and raw and magical and beautiful and unforgiving and tastes like cookies and milk with a side of vinegar sometimes. i won’t be able to stop that for you, and i don’t want to. because pain nourishes and cultivates something that cannot be learned in a book, or through the experiences of someone else….courage. you can’t be brave if nothing bad ever happens to you, and although part of me truly does wish i could stop all that gushy, messy life stuff from knocking at your door, you need that bravery…you will need it like you need nothing else.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: courage doesn’t always roar.  sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says i’ll try again tomorrow….{mary.anne.radmacher}