Thank you @theoutbackmama for these beautiful words about light, Chanukah, and loss.

“Weirdly,

Light and darkness can coexist.

Love and sorrow can stand side by side

Pain and joy

Loss and gratitude

Serenity and chaos

Both can sit in your heart and flow through your viens simultaneously

Occupying different changers of your mind, both seeking confirmation

Validation

Observation

My sweet baby Maccabee

Our Mac Boy,

Our Chanukah gift presented to us and ripped away from us at the exact same moment

Your legacy is this truth:

Two things can be true

Opposites.

Existing together.

I’m trying… but on the brightest of holidays… come the darkest of memories.

So much joy surrounds us as we celebrate out nation’s survival… while I mourn the death of my beloved son

Chanukah was one of the favorites… now it really really isn’t.

The sounds, the smells, the sights—they’re such iconic markers of Chanukah… and such triggers of that Chanukah.

A little Light can dispel a lot of darkness

But sometimes they just sit side by side

For a little while

Until this mama finds her strength to prevail.”

Remembering our son Matisyahu Maccabee or as we lovingly call him, Baby Mac; born sleeping on the first Chanukah light 2021.

Forever in our hearts, forever a light to this world

-Malki Rodal