If ever there was a story without a shadow, it would be a myth.

For a long time I thought this was the goal: To live without the shadows, sorrow and fear, pain and suffering. I believed in a place where only sunshine and happiness existed. And this was no place I knew of and in that belief I was broken.

When I turned toward the shadows and dared to look into the dark, I realized the shadows were as impermanent as the light and in fact they existed in relation to that light and the light seemed brighter and more beautiful as I allowed both experiences to exist. And in this allowing I can look at myself and my babies and I can see the joy of our birth and the sadness of our impermanence and these deep and unexplainable experiences can exist together, in an ache as deep as the ocean and as vast as the universe and as true as the first and last breaths we take.