Marissa Lane - 9/29/18
In an unexpected pleasure, granddaughter Marissa Lane sent a photograph she took on my birthday. I am a lover of light so it fit perfectly. Many windows that welcomed the sunshine drew me to choose this house when we were looking for a place to live in Hattiesburg. In all kinds of weather especially on the rare occasions when we have had snow, I’ve enjoyed the light and the feeling of being outside.
We have a standing family joke that if Al is home alone in the evening, the house looks dark and vacant. If I am here, all the lights are on. Our children in another area of town follow my philosophy. We can tell if they are home when we turn up their driveway between the trees because every light is on.
Marissa’s photograph made me think of the long dark nights a parent spends with a sick child, eagerly awaiting the sun. The child remains just as sick and the parent just as distressed with the dawn of light but somehow hope seems not so far away. I remembered longing for light, even a streetlight, when a friend and I drove through a dark countryside on two-lane country roads to find the place where we would attend a writer’s conference and how relieved we felt when a porch light poked a hole in the darkness.
The photograph also brought to mind the dark times of life when despair and trouble seem unending until a breakthrough pierces the darkness. I saved the photograph and, with Marissa’s permission, am using it for my blog today. When the doldrums hit or trouble comes, I plan to go back to it and remember that patient waiting through the darkness ends when the light breaks through.