I sat beside my little girl’s white and gold casket. I was wearing a dusty rose two-piece suit that I had bought to wear on our trip to Los Angeles in 1971. She was wearing her birthday dress, and a wrist corsage from our dear friend Joann. She had just turned seven.

There were a few relatives that came to see us at the funeral home, but not many, because we lived in Atlanta and she was to be buried in our hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Now I am older and frailer than I was back then in 1978. Her father was buried next to her in December of 2004. I will be cremated when my time comes.

I never returned to my former self; I suppose she was buried along with our daughter. The new Vicki was strong in some ways and destroyed in others.

I found Vernon Howard to be the perfect teacher for me. He insisted that there was only the Self and that we were all it, just playing different roles at different times.

I had no idea that I would become an essayist, holding to the theme of awakening. The ego cannot waken, for it does not exist.

Some of you weep with me at times as you face your own dark night of the soul. Mine went on for decades.

My time and life is my own and only I know how it feels to bury a small child.

My son and I are marked by her death and the death of her father. We don’t talk about it or dwell on it, but the bruises cannot be healed except by bringing light to them.

The inner light we carry we are able to pass on to others.

I give you mine in each essay I write.

The gentle winds of healing do their work in their own time and the times are dark indeed.

Nevertheless, we must walk on.

Vicki Woodyard