Dear Survivor,
I want you to know more than anything that I see you. I do not look past you to your tragedy, nor do I see through you to the future when you are free from it. No, I see you now and as you are now. I see you as you cannot see yourself.
I see you through the lens of this moment and this moment only because I know you are not who you were then and you are not yet who you are going to become. I accept you for who you still are, who you have worked so hard to grow into, and for what I know you carry with you in every waking moment. I accept you. I accept all of you.
I want you to know that though the road has been unimaginably hard, and the road ahead has its own twists and turns, sharp declines, and uphill battles, I will walk the way with you. I will not fall behind lingering over battles already won, nor I will not walk ahead where you are not ready to tread. I will walk the way with you, hand in hand.
I will speak to you along the way so you know you are not alone, and I will listen without judgment when you need to share your deepest pain. I will remind you of what you have forgotten and remember forever the courage you are teaching me to have now too.
When the way gets hard, I want you to know that you deserve your body. You deserve your mind, your heart, your soul. You deserve your hopes and dreams. You deserve your emotions, all of them, from your light and lovely joy to your red-hot burning rage. You deserve safety and a secure sense of self. You deserve to live and, when you are ready, you deserve the infinite love this world has to offer.
More than that, you deserve the infinite love you have to give yourself.
Until then, dear Survivor, I will hold you in my heart until you can hold yourself again. Until then, I will love enough for us both—for the entire world if I have to! I will love you when you think you cannot be loved. I will love you when you would wish me not to. I will love you at your lowest just as much as I would love you at your best because to me there is no difference.
There is only you, beautiful and bright you, shining through, always.
Lisa Marie Blair 