Despite the darkness, the light still shines
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
By KaTrina Jackson
PROMPT — Despite ...
Despite my plans going completely awry, my life has turned out better than I planned. Even with major surgeries, dealing with OCD and infertility, and the unexpected passing of my father, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how much goodness there is in this world.
In 2022, my life changed forever when my brother called me to tell me my father had died of a heart attack. The following two weeks were some of the busiest and most exhausting days of my life. My husband and I drove to be with my mom to help plan the funeral. And I will never forget the people who showed up for us. Friends I hadn’t spent time with in years came to lend a crying shoulder or a lemonade or just a listening ear. My father didn’t have life insurance when he died, so we didn’t have any way to pay for the funeral. So I sent out a call to all the people I knew and donations came flooding in. People I hadn’t seen in years, and others who I knew weren’t well off themselves, gave us enough so we could not only pay for the funeral, but also pay for a nice headstone. I was blown away by the amount of care and thought that people showed me upon my father’s passing. While I still miss him every single day, people still show up for me to remind me that I’m not alone.
There are definitely times in my life where I’ve felt completely and utterly alone. I’ve struggled with OCD since I was 12, though I had no idea what it was at the time. OCD for me replays my worst fears over and over and over again in my brain. It’s like being trapped in a living nightmare you can’t escape. It took me nearly sixteen years to get a diagnosis because every time I shared my secret struggles, people would laugh or would assign me labels or would stop talking to me. So I learned to hide my OCD, keeping it hidden so no one would know.
That is until I received my diagnosis and realized there was a whole community of people who knew what OCD felt like. For the first time in my life, I felt seen for something that I had hidden for so long. I felt validated in my struggle and was given tools that actually worked to help me move forward. And while my OCD does still flare up from time to time, it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, and I am forever grateful for that.
You’d think with loss and OCD that my life would be full of sorrow. Especially when you add infertility to the mix. My husband and I have been trying for six years to have a baby, which is not just a societal expectation or a religious one, but a deeply held desire. As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer and a mom. Both. Not just one or the other. And dealing with infertility has made that desire stronger, not less. It is hard, don’t get me wrong. After my right ovary was removed in 2024 because of a large mass that could have potentially been cancerous, I thought I would finally be able to get pregnant. But no. My one remaining ovary has very low egg count, so my chances of getting pregnant on my own are slim to none. Words cannot describe how devastated I felt. The loss of never having any genetic children is a loss no one can see.
Then we heard about embryo adoption—where couples who have gone through IVF donate their leftover embryos so couples like us can adopt them and experience all of pregnancy and childbirth. I still light up when I think about embryo adoption, and both my husband and I are excited to move forward, especially as we now know people who have pursued embryo adoption who have led the way for us.
But as I write this, I’m recovering from major abdominal surgery. Two weeks ago, I was rushed to the hospital because my large intestine had twisted over itself and needed immediate correction or I could die. I was in the hospital for a horrible week, and I felt pretty low. OCD and hospitals don’t mix very well.
Yet again, people showed up. So many people came to visit me while I was in the hospital. I received dozens of text messages from concerned friends and family. And even though I’ve spent a lot of time alone, I am grateful for the people who have been there for me.
I’m grateful for the lessons that I’ve learned despite everything. I’ve learned that joy can be found even in the darkest of places, if you simply look for the light, to paraphrase Dumbledore. But truthfully, you can find peace and joy even in the hardest of times. Sometimes it might be a simple text message. Sometimes it might be a meme that made you laugh, or flowers that made you smile. Sometimes it might be an anonymous donation that makes your father’s funeral possible. Sometimes it might be a stuffed animal that makes you grin like a kid again.
Despite everything I’ve gone through, I’ve learned that it’s the little things that matter most. They truly can bring light in the darkest times. Never underestimate the power of just doing something—anything—to brighten someone’s day. If you look for enough of those small rays of light, you’ll eventually find enough to rival the brightness of the sun—and bring light to other people too.
KaTrina Jackson loves penguins, piano music and chocolate, and spends each day trying to juggle those around her jobs as a freelance editor and project manager for Eschler Editing. She graduated with a degree in editing and publishing because she couldn’t get enough stories in her life. She’s also a member of three writing groups, attends and teaches at writing conferences yearly, and debuted her first self-published novel in Summer 2025. When she’s not writing, editing or reading, she can be found practicing yoga, teaching piano lessons or designing penguin stickers. She and her husband live in Olathe, Kansas.