Lost and Found

Do you know the feeling you get when you finally run across something that's been missing for ages, something you've spent endless hours hunting for to no avail?


Multiply that by a hundred, and you know how I felt the other day.


Here's what happened:


After the accident, it suddenly occurred to me to share Cory's artwork at her viewings and service.  One of the first places I went, sobbing with every step, was to my workplace to gather all the paintings that brightened the walls of my office.


One could not be found.  Cory had painted a portrait of me when I got my current position.  It was during a trial-filled time, as Tim and I were separated, and Cory was in the process of being stabilized on medication for her illness.  This painting was very precious to me because it reflected the way my child saw me through her eyes, and was made immeasurably more precious because she'd never get the chance to paint me another.


No matter how I wracked my brain over the next twenty two months, I couldn't figure out where it was.  I knew it had to be in my old office, but for some reason, it just wasn't.


One of Cory's favorite sayings was "If you're lost, you can always be found".  She told me having an episode was much like getting lost.  At the beginning, she felt mainly anxious, and a little uncertain.  As the voices and delusions increased, she would get confused and began to doubt herself.  After awhile, she'd exist in a state of full panic, not only unsure what was real and what wasn't, but afraid she'd never feel safe again. 


Just take a minute.  Can you imagine living that way?  I try to get my head around the dragons that girl slayed, and it humbles me. 


At the end of an episode, we'd talk about how she'd fought her way out again, how she felt better, how there is always a light at the end of a tunnel.  She'd breathe easy for awhile, and then the voices would slowly creep back in on her.  She held onto hope, my girl.  She clutched it for dear life in those little hands of hers.


As you may have read, I've had a rough couple of weeks.  One morning as I worked on the computer, I put my headphones on and hit 'shuffle' on my I-phone.  Sometimes one of Cory's songs comes on.  Sometimes I feel it's random; other times I wonder.


As I worked this particular morning, my heart was hurting.  Several songs that Cory and I had discussed in length to mean something significant to her and past hurts she had carried came on.  I strongly, strongly felt she was sending me a message that she knew I was hurting, and for many of the same reasons she had hurt, and it would be okay.  She understood.  I felt her in my office so strongly, she'd might as well have been standing right behind me and placing her slightly trembling hands around me in a comfortable embrace.  She may have done just that. 


At the end of this playlist popped up one of our favorite "cooking dinner" kitchen jams.  For a second, I could look off to the side and see a woman and her two children, silly and whole, dancing with pure abandon in their kitchen. 


Right about this time, someone came into my office and placed that missing painting in my hands.  It had been found behind someone's desk or filing cabinet.  I hugged the person, and hung it directly over my desk, exactly where it is meant to be.


I sat back and looked at myself through my daughter's eyes.  She'd painted me alone.  There was an air of strength and determination in her lines and colors.  It was as if she had painted me, her rock, her way home through all the scary places she was made to go. 


I listened so, so carefully for her voice. 
This is what she said,
"You're safe, Mom.  You can handle this."