All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”

Saint wanted to ask what it was like, to lose the thing that defined you. But perhaps she knew: it left you someone else. A stranger you had no choice but to tolerate, and see each day and feel and fear.

“If you ever get the chance to make someone smile, or better yet, make someone laugh, then you take it. Each and every time,” Norma said.

At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.

“Okay is the preserve of the uninspired, Patchwork. I’d rather live and die at the extremes than exist in the middle.”

And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

If you learn from the times you go wrong, you can revel in the times you don’t.”

“When it comes to marriage, love is merely a visitor over a lifetime. Respect and kindness, they are the true foundations.

“The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”

To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.