Linda

Well, today’s the day. Another milestone reached. Three years. Three years since we all started our new lives into the after… of the before and after. Before today, there was a life projected ahead with a certain electricity that only you could provide. THAT electricity left us that day. It’s been like remembering what that room once looked like with YOUR light shining into it. We have found ways to light it again, but it does look different in this new light. You surely had your own glow. One of a kind incandescent. There was a warmth to it that everyone near it could feel. You are sorely missed by so many.

Three years ago, I know no one could imagine this day. The third birthday of a day we all hated. It occurs to me that life has a funny way of regrowing itself. It is a birth in the same way it is a passing. Upon the day of your departure, you planted seeds within us all that began their awakening that day. Like so many things just starting, it is hard to tell what they will become as they grow and mature. But that IS life. The unknown. The sowing of new seedlings. The passing of others. The constant change of the constant we believe will never change. Life is slow and then it is fast and then it is slow again- the ever so persistent Father Time. So here we are. Evolved into new things. The green sprouts in the spring coming up from under the dead fodder left over from winter. That IS life. Every minute of every day of every year we bring with us the DNA that shows us the way through it all. Without it, what are we? Even when we don’t want the change, it is inevitable. It happens. We get daffodils in the spring. We also get loads of unwanted weeds. Both springs up from the ground that just moments ago appeared to be dormant, quiet and lost to the bitterness of winter. But… each year, the sun brings the warmth, and the rain brings the life water and it all begins AGAIN. And so do we. We can choose the beauty of the daffodils and the hope in the beauty they bring. We can choose to discard the weeds and cultivate our lives in the same way. Getting rid of the things that choke out the beauty. Finding the JOY. And that is what you would have intended in those sprouting’s, find the joy. They are all choices to be made and the seeds you sowed in us all sprout the goodness you left to be grown in US. What a beautiful legacy to have given. Beauty, optimism, joy, gladness. Nothing but good.

Though we have endured the bitterness of your leaving, we are left with your renewal in our hearts and souls as each year passes. Growth is emerging each new day with the joy you gave to us all, cultivating the joy you gave no matter where you were. There is a peace in knowing we can and do take this part of you with us each day we live. That you are never really far from us at all. That you remain in every beat of our hearts. Every laugh that comes from our souls. The smiles coming from the children. The wonder left to behold. You are still there. Inside of it all. You will forever live on. In each one of US.

Joyfully~ as you would have wanted it…

JHW+