No matter how good a day I have I still break down at night.  I break down when I light candles.  I break down when I am on my own for longer than a minute or two.  I can be perfectly presentable so long as I am with other people, but put me on my own, (or even on my own with just my immediate family) and you are in for water works.

I really am doing everything I can.  I am taking the medication.  I am getting out.  I  am working hard to get back into my normal routine.  I am playing with Channah.  I got back into the studio on Friday.  I am making plans with friends.  It seems I am learning to "fake it" for fairly long periods at a time- but it is always still there.  Hiding just beneath the surface ready to pounce the minute my mind is no longer distracted.

Shabbat, after Candle lighting, Channah's Bubbie took her out for a bit and I just sat and looked at the candles.  There were 5 lit for my family, and 3 for hers.  She still lights one for my husband.  My daughter lights one for herself.  And I light 2 for me, and one for each of my girls.

I sat looking at the two candles.  So alike, yet so different.  I guess because of the air flow one of the flames was flickering and dancing, the other went up straight and true.  I could not help but think about how symbolic of my two girls the two flames were.  One dances and twinkles in the daylight and the other went straight up with no flickering of life.

It had been a long week.  The day before we had gone on a tiyul to Tzfat.  Yes we sat on the kiseh eliyahu in the Ari Ashkenaz shul.  We also stopped at Meron at the kever of Rabbi Shimon Bar  Yochai to add our teffillot for a healthy and whole pregnancy.  As I found myself staring at the candles and thinking about our tiyul, I found myself hoping, then wishing, then finally praying.  I found myself with tears rolling down my cheeks reciting tehillim I had not said in years and begging that God grant my prayers.

I guess that answers my question of whether or not I still believe in God.

I have come to realize that I do still believe.  I believe and I want to see him as that Avinu father figure who I can turn to when I am hurt and crying and want someone who can wipe my tears away and make everything all better.  But the truth is, that while that is the image I want to have, I think the image I am left with is more of Adonai image.  An image of a master who holds my life in his hands and can play with it at will.

This year while reciting "avadim hayinu" (we were slaves) at the seder, in my head I was thinking "shiftecha achshav" (I [female] am a slave now).  I feel like a marionette.  God can pull my strings in any which direction, make me move in ways well  beyond what should be humanly possible, and there is not a damn thing I can do about any of it.

I found myself with my head down on my arm and my arm soaked with tears.  That's how Jason found me when he came home from shul.  My arm soaking wet, my eyes red and swollen and my mouth begging my master for a gift he does not seem think I deserve.

It is now almost 8 full weeks since I lost my Gabbi.  I just lit my first yertzeit candle for her last night.  How long until the hole in my soul starts to mend and I can move forward without always looking back.