Lived Through This
Losing My Son Helped Me Learn to Surrender
Moments when ‘everything’s going to be ok’ isn’t true
Everything is going to be okay.
We whisper it to our children when they skin their knees or have a fight with a friend. We proclaim it to those who have lost their job, their partner, their health. We post it on Instagram, showcasing our optimism. We repeat it like a mantra to ease our own anxiety.
Everything is going to be okay.
We assert it to bolster our conviction that the pain is temporary or even inflated. We utter it to regain a sense of control over the future, to reassure ourselves that the wrongs that plague us now can be righted.
Everything is going to be okay.
We also say it to obscure, to diminish, to tamp down big, unruly emotions. It’s a reflex that releases feelings of discomfort — a trite response to an experience we can’t or don’t want to understand. We say it to skim over the pain straight to the bright side.
The truth is scarier than the mantra. The truth is that everything you think you know could be gone in a moment. There are no guarantees, no promises of life without suffering. The truth is the universe takes as much as it gives.
