A healing light

My daughter called just before midnight, a couple of nights ago. We were sound asleep, still adjusting to the loss of Daylight Savings Time, and it took me a couple of sentences to realize I wasn't talking to my younger daughter, the one who is most likely to call in tears at that time of night.

But eventually I woke up enough to realize that it was my older daughter, and that she was calling to tell me that two of her closest friends had been hit by a car while in a pedestrian crosswalk; that one was killed instantly, and the other was in a hospital, in critical condition.

The news was shocking: death, especially sudden death, that close to home, is always shocking. And as a mother, I ache for her loss, for the parents of the two girls, for all those friends whose lives are forever altered by this one event, and for the driver, apparently not drunk, who just didn't see them in the poorly lit street -- where other similar accidents have happened before.

I realized, looking out the window this morning, that since that phone call I've been carrying -- or perhaps just trying to help carry -- this great purple weight of grief that extends beyond this loss to a lot of other losses in the lives surrounding mine and beyond. So it was heartening to see that purple laced with a bit of light; to feel the smoothness of the water before the morning breeze ruffles the lagoon; to see the streak of black balanced by the caress of silver.

I don't understand how it works, but sometimes what my eyes see has a way of healing the dark spots in my heart. It may not make it all better -- perhaps nothing can -- but it does provide at least a momentary release.

And for that, I will always be grateful.