October 25, 2017: In Memory of Audrey Anna

Okay. For friends who don’t live nearby, our Bainbridge Island community is, as of yesterday, grieving the loss of a very young woman to suicide. (What an awful word. I can barely bring myself to type it.) Our island’s collective, community heart is just broken to tiny pieces for this beautiful child and her family.

Our heart is broken also for all the children, and also for all the families. We, in the midst of daily life, by both the grace of God and the sheer unwillingness of the human spirit to yield, had already been grappling with impossibly hard things. And so we now absorb this fresh hurt, layered on top of all the rest.

This latest clear reminder of our reality is staggering: All of our kids are struggling. Even the happy ones, the bright ones—the secure, the confident, the healthy ones. All.

It might be especially hard, because I’m a mother who feels like each day brings its own unique tangle of tricky parenting choices and conversations, to not feel desperate on a morning like this. So I cry a little, and then retreat into my safest places. I am so fortunate to own this emotional real estate—my writing place, my running place, my music place. Light streams reliably into these havens, no matter how dark the lurking demons may be.

I’m posting a song I consider to be one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. Not because it speaks directly to the specific brokenness of this morning (it doesn’t), but because it is a gentle affirmation that despite every dark thing, bright hope takes strong root and endures in our connection to one another. I invite you into this shelter with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3DcRWkC4v0