“…the Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness,” she read to me. Looking through the pane of glass bedside, I could hardly make out the orange of the streetlight — much less any sunlit mountains.

“…and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother.”

I looked up, seeing what I looked for and hearing what I was listening for. Her smile shone. She cradled my head in her lap, her fingers the canopy above my drooped eyelids.

She left me there, turning out the light. I turned to my side, cradled in my womb, and focused my eyes on the burning sun hanging from Heaven’s iron gate outside my window. He lit the road more traveled: ground down by tires and hooves and soles of shoes, but He was far, farther still, from my feet.

Days later, weeks later, I wasn’t sure — I remembered the street outside, lit with sun and loveliness, wondering why it wouldn’t shine in on me. I had racked my little brain for answers and couldn’t quite find where the lamp was that lit my feet, where the light was for my path, but for one blinding moment I stared into that flash and it clicked.

Now I can’t help but stare into my own beady, naive eyes and laugh. This was my mountain and the foothills were warm, ever warm.

Full of sun and loveliness, she was. Dark the valley has been without her light.