AUGUST 31
I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and
fragrance of a flower—the Light in my darkness, the Voice
in my silence.
—HELEN KELLERSurely a woman who from birth could neither see nor hear
speaks out of a deprivation more profound than anything
we can imagine. And yet with the long, persistent—and in-
sistent—care of her teacher and mentor, Anne Sullivan,
Helen Keller was able to break from this darkness, to liken
the presence of the God within her to wonders she could
know through her sense of smell, through warmth on her
skin and vibrations of her fingertips.
Though that is a vastly different darkness from the dark-
ness of grief, there are perhaps elements in common—a
sense of isolation, discouragement, uncertainty about the
future.
What is to sustain us through the long periods of grief?
What enables us not to be totally crushed?
Along with all kinds of help from our friends and our
communities of faith, it is often a sense of the God within
that helps us break from our darkness. A presence as gentle
and insistent as the fragrance of flowers, as life-giving and
warming as light.
I have a strength within myself that sometimes surprises me.