I am lost in the forest. There is only black and white. At times I am so disoriented because I can't differentiate between the ground and the sky. I am being chased and my lungs burn from running. I slip and and feel ragged stones and tree needles pierce my skin. The shrubs and bramble rip into my bare legs and scratch at my face and arms. I am lost and alone and feel panicked. I know that there is someplace else where I am supposed to be but I can't find my way out. There is a sense of urgency to escape but the harder I struggle to escape the entrapment of the trees and vines that wrap themselves around my legs, the tighter their grasp. I sense people watching me. I can hear noises in the distance, but I can't find my way out of the darkness. After days lost in the darkness, I hear her voice...
I follow her voice until I reach a small clearing in the woods. There is a circle of tree stumps and I sit down to rest. She appears next to me. Pure white hair...big black sunglasses, a white dress with a simple black line down the middle and around her neck is a rope of silver, gold and ruby stones. She doesn't tell me her name. I don't ask how she found me. I just know that she is here to help me and I feel a calmness wash over my body. I am not alone!
I know I need to find my way out of the darkness. I sense that someone needs me, they are looking for me. I still feel the presence of others around me but I can't see them. I look around because I know that I am not alone but I can't find anyone else.
My Guide directs me to get up. She tells me I've rested here long enough, it's time to go. When I face her again, she is gone. So, I continue on my quest to escape the barren, black forest...feeling all alone. I am lost, wandering, hopeless, scared, and tired. I want to quit.
In the moments that I feel too tired and weak to continue, it is her voice that I hear, telling me to rest. Telling me to breathe. Telling me that I'm going to be ok. When fear and panic wash over me, her voice calms me. When I stumble over and over, and I cry because my body aches and I begin to feel as if I'm never going to make it out and in a desperate plea I ask for this to end... it is her voice that I hear telling me to,"Fight Amy, fight."
There are moments when I catch a glimpse of her ahead and I run to catch her but I can never reach her. I follow her voice through the deepest, darkest nights when blackness engulfs me, when fear and panic seize my body, I hear her call my name over and over again and I follow her.
And then finally, I reach her. I've made it out of the black forest. She sits me in a chair in the center of a storefront window, white, fluffy, fake snow fills the space around me. Everything is white now, so bright it is blinding. She tells me that I've done well. That I've worked really hard. That it's ok to quit if I want to. I want to sit there and look out of the window forever. It is calm and bright and beautiful but then I think I hear my husband's voice. He's calling for me. I want to run to him. I want to tell him that I made it. I want to find him. I tell her that I want to go home. I tell her I can go a little bit further. I ask her to guide me home. She smiles at me and tells me to stay close and follow her voice. I do...I can only hear my name now. "Amy, Amy, Amy."
I will my eyes to open. My body is covered in tubes. There are 4 people in my small room working on machines that pump fluids into my body. I am awake. I am alive.
My guide stayed with me, she led me through the deepest, darkest moments. She encouraged me when I was weary, she implored me to fight, she never left my side...and finally, she led me home!
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