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Truth Without Answers Truth is easy to spot when you’re a kid. It sticks out like a grownup on a playground. Truth: I played with that sand toy last week, so it’s mine. Truth: I will totally die if you make me wear that. Just totally die. Get a bit older, and things get a little murkier. We join the rest of humanity in the search for Truth. It’s a slam dunk for some, but for others of us it’s not so easy. Sure, a few issues are still “gimmes.” Truth: I don’t earn what I’m worth. Truth: My kids won’t even wear the color green, much less eat it. But for me, truth has become something that changes based on my life experience – a moving target. I call it situational truth. Some things still seem pretty incontrovertible – at least for a moment in time. The tire on my car, for instance, is truly flat. But some things – many things – are not so easily stated. They are not firm and fast, and the concept of truth becomes blended with who you are and what you bring to the table. Not to mention what’s already sitting on the table in front of you by the time you pull up your chair. This lesson arrived in my life in my mid-30s, when I became pregnant. Roughly six months along, my daughter was born prematurely, only able to cling to life for about 10 minutes. That’s the incontrovertible part. Everything else, however, went to shades of grey. Empty, I searched for truth outside of myself. I turned to everyone else’s answers but my own, hoping to find the real deal out there. I knew I would recognize the Truth when I heard it, because I would feel a sense of peace, of resolution upon hearing the spoken words. “It was for the best.” Really? Was it? Is that the Truth, or just another version? My baby girl was healthy, only premature because of my body’s inability to carry her. There was no reason to suspect she would have been anything but a typically normal, wailing newborn upon her scheduled arrival into the world. The truths of everyone around me collided with the truth of my own empty arms. Grief support groups, books, pastors, neighbors, nurses – everyone had a truth for me to hear. I found not one, but many definitive answers to my questions of “why” and “where.” “Everything happens for a reason.” It does? Everything? There is no chaos, no chance, no miserable timing or just plain bad luck? Seven years of searching for the truth have led me to a place that is still filled with uncertainties. But there are a few things I do know – a few truths I have finally discovered. I am certain, for instance, that grief does not end. But – and this is the amazing part – it can coexist with joy. They are just different pieces of the same mosaic, often existing uneasily side-by-side like an old married couple living together out of necessity, not because this is how they planned it. Ironically, after all my searching, seeking out options, theories and comforts I found these truths at home. It was my son who showed them to me, through laughter, hugs and drawings that show a happy family scrawled in crayon. I hang his latest masterpiece on the refrigerator, next to the magnetic alphabet. I smile as I watch his little hands straighten it, and we step back together to admire his artwork as if we are in the Louvre. Daddy is drawn larger than life and I can only tell which figure depicts Mommy from the length of the hair. Everyone is smiling. Only I can see that there is one family member missing. I still don’t have the answers to all of my questions. But truth is a funny thing. It’s subjective, elusive and very frequently painful. Just looking for it is sometimes more than we can face. And sometimes what you believe to be true turns out to be anything but, and you have to start all over again. Maybe “situational truth” isn’t the best term to describe it, because that gives the impression that anything goes, and that truth is a word to be brought out and bandied about like a weapon, to win arguments with spouses or when talking politics at parties. Truth may be many things, but it’s not a punch line. So what is it, exactly? Maybe we each have to discover that on our own. But, sometimes the search becomes more revealing than the finding, and maybe just as important. That’s my truth. Kimberly Paulk lives and writes in Charlotte, NC. Her articles have been published in Charlotte Parent and Organic Family Magazine. Visit her blog www.greenaroundtheedgescharlotte.blogspot.com.
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