A Tear Drop Becomes a Rain Drop
She was always there.
Morgan’s smile was always one of the first things I recognized as my eyes adjusted to stage lights and shadows became faces. A crowd of comfort; a sea of support; her smile shinning from the darkness like a lighthouse, reminding me I wasn’t alone out there. The band would begin to play and I would grab the microphone, still working through the anxiety no one knew was there. Every once and a while I would look over at Morgan. If she was dancing, I was doing okay.
Oct 8th, 2012
I sat on a wooden bench and watched her loved ones file into a church like debris being washed onto shore after a storm. We sat there, together in our loneliness, helplessly wondering where we came from and how we got here. The feeling of being ripped away from your reality, from the cocoon you call life, helps bring you back to God. My body tingled, my hands shook and every familiar face I saw walk through that door squeezed my heart a little tighter. The pain reminded me I was alive and made me think deeper about that opportunity.
A drop of water will one day leave its home and embark on a long adventure. It will travel down rivers that move too fast and through lakes that seem to not move at all. At times it will feel cherished and loved, at others, lost and unappreciated. While it travels with purpose and determination, it will never truly choose it’s own path.
One day, when it’s as comfortable as it can possibly be, it will be lifted from the ground and carried into the sky. It will live in the clouds until it is once again needed on Earth, at which time it will come back for a purpose only its creator will ever know. Water, like the answers we search for, can’t be grasped by a forceful hand. The only way to hold it is to relax and let it go; to accept that there are some things out of your control. Water, like your soul, can’t be hurt by force. Punch it, burn it, throw it away… it will always find its way home.
Don’t let your ego trick you into thinking you are alone out there, somehow separated from others, from the world around you and most importantly from God. We are all built by a substance that is as soft as it is destructive. A substance that not only makes up our world but sustains it. You are not alone, in life or death.
From which we came we will return.
I sat in the back pew, eyes closed, searching my mind. All of the sudden a realization showered me with the first positive thought I had felt all day. I closed my eyes a little tighter and listened a lot harder.
If it was true, I wouldn’t be able to see it.
I was finally getting the chance to come to Morgan’s show, as she had done for me so many times. She sang through the loving memories of friends, through the comforting words of pastors and the timbre of every voice in the choir. My senses began to sharpen. I heard her through the cries of a clueless baby and through the weeps of the old man holding her, equally as lost. I heard her through every amen that echoed against the rusty, white walls and even in the silence that filled the space between hard fought words. She was all around us; it was the perfect encore to the song of life.
When the curtain fell and Morgan took her final bow, we gave a standing ovation. Tears replaced applause and we cheered until the last drop.
Morgan was a beautiful, uniquely kind and carrying person. Her soul was lifted into the sky one month ago and returns to Earth every once and a while to remind me to smile. I don’t view my memories of her as internally stored but instead as thoughts that are triggered by an external happening. That is to say, when I find myself thinking about her it’s because she is here. For some of us it may happen once a month, others once a week, and to those who knew her best everyday.
She will always be here.
-Mike Myers, in loving memory of Morgan Throckmorton.
A selfish thought that warms my heart: Morgan started a blog on June 19, 2011. In her first post she wrote, “A few of my friends have them and it seemed like a pretty good way to share my own thoughts.” When I read that sentence for the first time a chill ran over my body. To everyone who loved Morgan, to the people fighting a similar battle and even to those who simply stumble across it, having her thoughts left behind for us to cherish and learn from is invaluable. If I had anything to do with you leaving behind those beautiful words, Morgan, I would have done more than I imagined possible in life.
Read Morgan’s blog (http://momentsofclarity-morgan.blogspot.com/) and start your own!