On a cold March day, I stared up a mountain of a sand dune. Lake Michigan lay behind me. The strong wind before me issued a challenge to climb the massive mountain of sand. I was determined to make it to the top.
With vigor, I started climbing that dune but halfway up, I had to stop. My lungs burned.
It was like when I fought to breathe as I stood over the grave of my grandparents the day before. They had died unexpectedly, quickly, and just a few months apart. I had not seen them in a decade. They had only met one of my four children, and none were mentioned in their obituaries.
I had simply neglected to nurture a relationship with them.
“Come on Mommy! We can do this!!”
I snapped back to the present as I smiled at my daughter.
I pushed forward.
“We can do this,” I thought to myself. “I can do this.”
I continued to climb as tears stung my cheeks in the brutal cold.
I was there to fix what I could and to embrace what could never be repaired.
There’s something tragic about knowing that some things on planet Earth will never be made right. It’s excruciating.
More excruciating than the pain in my legs as I neared the top of that mountain. I was almost there. I just had to push a little more. I grabbed at tree roots to pull myself up.
I could finally see the top of this emotional mountain I had been climbing for my entire life. I stood beside a father I had never known, looking over the graves of his parents. They were my only connection to him. Their death pushed me to finally meet him. I fought for an understanding of how he could just walk away from me. I pulled out painful roots in my heart.
As I reached the top of that dune, my daughter, still ahead of me, excitedly bounced around with pigtails swirling wildly around her face, beaming. We had done it.
“Mommy!! Look!” She pointed at the horizon.
I fixed my gaze beyond the beach over Lake Michigan. At some point, the sun had come out and warmed the air. Sunbeams reflected off the gentle lake waves, and it looked like a million miles of glitter dancing on the surface.
This was what the climb was for:
the view from the top.
My grandparents were now gone, and I have a father who will never love me the way I wanted. The way I needed.
I decided then, at that moment, I wouldn’t delay in healing broken relationships anymore.
If my grandparents’ death taught me anything, it’s that yes, sometimes it is too late.
Always do whatever you can to make things right while there’s time.
I stood on the edge of that dune and looked out over the lake. I threw my arms up and my head back into the sun, and I smiled. I laughed. My daughter stepped beside me and did the same. We shared a moment whose magnitude, at 7 years old, she would never understand.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“For what momma?” A little fear and great excitement spread across her face.
“To race me to the bottom?”
“Yes!” She yelled.
I grabbed her hand as we took the first bounding steps down the mountain of sand.
And we flew.
It was a life-affirming moment where I took hold of my destiny. I felt so alive.
I was letting go of the past and becoming free to live in the present.
Finally, I was free from deep pain that had held me back for so long.
At the bottom I caught my daughter.
I held her as we laughed together.
I have no idea how many more mountains I will climb in my life, what will come, and if I will conquer or fail the tests before me.
But I will live. I will forgive. I will be FREE.
Beautifully Written by: Maria AnnetteB+B Editor/Contributor {Soul Sister in Christ}