Vision.

Whether on the East or West coast, there are core elements found in cultures. No matter what direction we come from, the potential to share common experiences is a beautiful thing that brings hope and healing.

While I continue to help those closest develop a path and plan for the future, I find grief to be an underlying element that eventually surfaces. It remains in the shadows, hoping not to be found, wreaking havoc in subtle ways and preventing delays in life. The emotions associated with loss haunt and keep healing from coming. Before you know it, you stop "moving"........

The direction our lives take is up to us.... for now, up to me, until each one does the necessary work to heal. It hits home when I remember my kids do not have their dad to find comfort, support, and strength in. The security and hugs my daughter enjoyed from her dad are no longer available. If I'm not attentive, as a parent, my children can look elsewhere for attention. In many ways, I don't move on, until they do......

I am acquainted with grief and the feelings that come along with it, so I am able to identify the effects of loss, young or old, and the aimlessness it brings. There is often no one to lead one through because most have not been this way before......

But everyday now holds some new secret for me to keep or share, whether mundane or mysterious...... and I curiously anticipate each day.

The Hermosa Beach Community Center displays a verse I live by that says, "where there is no vision, people perish." You must always be willing to see life, and loss, in new ways......

So on days when I fall down, I make myself get back up again and keep working towards our necessities and our dreams.
Goodnight from the Beach Cities.