All I have...

“It’s the most important thing I have”, she said softly.

“Really, it is all I have, it is the only thing  that separates me from everybody else, that is truly my own, the only thing that is -

me.”

There wasn’t anybody listening to her. She was talking to herself, wandering through the winter day, her face cold from the wind, her soul warmed by this surprising, intimate moment.  The desperation she had felt building within herself over the last few weeks started to crumble and the impact released tears she hadn’t been able to shed before.

Her thoughts continued.

“It has been with me all my life. No matter what the conditions around me nor what roads I took, it has never left me, it has been constant. Through the years, I

heard it

took it for granted,

cherished it,

despised it,

ignored it,

fought it,

questioned it,

thought I lost it,

called for it,

lived it.

It has the strength to rob me of my sleep and appetite, the power to send light into the darkest places. It is relentless, even when my mind and my heart falter. It is the last thing that can be heard when all else is silenced.”

She felt a smile form on her face. There was no mistake. She was listening to it now