02/22/2025
If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you have likely read that there was a rare sighting of an anglerfish near the Canary Islands of Spain. These fish typically live thousands of feet below sea level in total darkness, with the exception of their own glowing light.
For reasons that are still being considered, a female fish was caught on spotted near sunlit waters—seeing a light other than her own for the first time. And shortly after, she died.
Like so many others, I have found myself in tears over this small fish- searching for metaphors of why she ventured towards the sun. Maybe I’m an empath to the point of insanity, a blubbering, emotional mess, or maybe I can’t help but feel like this dang fish represents the hope and grief inside all of us.
Maybe she was lost. Maybe she was searching. Or maybe, just maybe, she had nothing left to lose and enough hope to believe there was something bigger than herself.
Grief can feel like this—like living in a crushing depth where the only light is the one you make yourself. Some days, that glow is enough to guide you.
Other days, it flickers and fades, and you wonder if there is anything beyond the darkness you’ve known.
But what if, like the anglerfish, we sometimes rise—not because we expect survival, but because something in us still longs to see the light? What if hope is not about certainty, but about surrendering to the possibility that there is more?
Maybe it doesn’t matter why the anglerfish swam toward the unknown. Maybe all that matters is that, for one brief moment, she let herself be held by a light greater than her own.
(Okay, I’m laughing and crying as I write this because this is probably so cringe, but I hope that one of you out there reading this will relate and we can cry over this fish together 😭😅
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