I am feeling grateful tonight. Steve is home, there is money in the bank, and work on the horizon. I have beautiful friends, supportive family, and a small army of warriors of the heart helping me walk this path. I am writing daily, shedding pounds slowly, getting my health and my energy back, and last night as fear turned to terror and threatened to pull me under, I took my own words to heart and I danced. In my living room. In my nightgown. And I understood that dancing, like writing, will save my life.

Years ago, my therapist at the time shook his head with a self-satisfied smile and announced, You need to dance. I nodded and made up excuses. I tried a couple of times to find a class I liked. I gave up. I hated looking in the mirror, comparing the thirty-something out of shape me to the twenty-one year old who danced for a living, or the sixteen year old who danced because it was oxygen and kept her alive. Last night I remembered how to breathe and while it didn’t take the terror away, it made it bearable.

Tonight I stare back at my life in wonder. How did I get so angry that I not only shut the door on my most fundamental needs, I padlocked it, swallowed the key and walked away? I don’t think the answer matters. Somehow, the perfect storm of grief and love is tearing me apart and putting me back together again, closer to whole than I’ve ever been.

I read the other night an excerpt from a book that stated the souls of children who die while still in their mama’s bellies are so evolved that they simply needed to touch life for a moment to complete their journey. It’s a nice thought. Maybe, just maybe, I helped Benjamin as much as he is helping me.