Solstice 2018: Darkness and Light

A guest post by Katie, December 2018

It’s a year to the day since I found out I was pregnant with a son, our third, a surprise. On our way to the company Christmas party, sick and giddy, my husband and I flashed with our secret light.

Our secret grew, and my belly . . . until it didn’t.

William Owl was still born at 20 weeks.

He came in his mourning veil, swathed in midnight, slipping silently from me.

For months, we were hidden in the darkness of grief—rain-slicked footsteps, void, ash.

Spring surged cruel. Fecund and unabashed.  Next came summer without a birthday and then autumn. Now, finally, the darkness has returned.  Matching us.

And yet, we cannot stay here.  The light is returning.  There was that burst as he taught us to trust ourselves, the glimmer in the tenderness he left behind.  There was that flash in our strength to endure and the blaze in our love for him, his brothers, this world.

We neither hastened nor hid from the light: its coming, its pace, was unchanged by our desire.

The world turns and us, too, grateful for darkness, grateful for light.

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Katie is a mom to two living boys, a lover of public health, a data nerd and a researcher. She loves good beer, conversation and community.

Photo: Sunset in Seattle July 17, 2018, taken from the Alaskan Way Viaduct.