the night the earth shook

March 7, 2003

Jasai -27
Los Angeles
2 children - boy(7) girl (23 months)

My daughter screams around this time every weekday morning (6:10 a.m.) She wants to get out of her bed to come nudge and huddle under me. One week ago tomorrow, she had what I didn’t know at the time was a normal reaction to a too-high fever. So strong and frightening was the way she shook in my arms in the throws of a seizure that I knew I had to hold on tight to my mind or I would have lost it.

She shook and shook, yet I was solid and grateful for her life, and her strength, and her will. She was holding on and pushing through for the pain that she knew I could never endure if she gave up. I loved her soul in those long, anxious and terrifying moments. She was the best gift in that moment; the gift of letting go and trusting that it would all be okay. Nothing I was capable of doing mattered except trusting and loving. There really is nothing else, only derivatives. She fought through, held on, and understood, at the end of that tunnel, better than she had at its beginning that I am here for her. For both of my children. For any to come in the future. Above all ambition and seeking, my heart’s eye in constant on them. God has granted me the privilege of souls. I will work and not faint.

End 6:22 a.m.