One of Isaac’s favourite stories that he probably told me almost every time his teen years came up was about the time he joined the theatre. Like his other stories, it was only composed of a few lines but I could tell it was an important turning point in his life. His real-life character as a young boy was that of a sensitive and reserved kid who was given two lifetimes worth of grief before the age of ten, but when he was given the opportunity to act out his emotions within the safety of a play in his early teens, he said that he finally started to come out of his shell.

          From the moment Isaac’s life suddenly faded to blackout, I felt the heat of the spotlight. But unfortunately, this was not within the safety of a school play, it was a real-life drama. All eyes were on me and I was the act by which everyone was going to critique whether my husband’s final scene was a family tragedy or his honourable destiny. The curtain had only been closed on Isaac’s last performance for 48 hours when I wrote the first impromptu words in my bullet journal…

“We are not victims of Isaac’s passing.”

~ Excerpt from The Invitation to Exist, Chapter “An Audience of Two”