I was gonna write a blog post about renewing your space. I wanted to go into detail about how it's important and it can bring a freshness to the new year....But I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna talk about this funk that I have been in since we got home from the holidays. This feeling is on the border of depression...And I can't seem to shake it.
You see I had one of the best family vacations I have ever been on. It was seriously so good. Family, fun, food...I got to slow down and enjoy my life. I loved it. I went hiking, walked through my old hometown. I explored new shops, coffee spots, people. It was as though a weight had been lifted from my heart during those 10 magical days. I also got to see a really wonderful friend from high school. It was such a joy seeing her and her family. It was as though no time had passed between us. It was during our last day on vacation that we visited her. The news she gave me stirred a disturbance in my soul...
Her name was Sam. We had gone to high school with her. She was two years behind us in school. Sam was kind. She was sweet. A work horse; Sam had a fire in her belly and it came out in fitness and competition. She was a light...and my heart breaks over and over when I think of her being gone. Just like that. Passed away in her sleep. The night before Christmas Eve. 34 years old. Healthy...FIT. A wife. Mother of two boys. Young boys. Boys who are at an age where they deeply need mama. And she was gone... She went to bed and never woke. Gone. Stolen in the night...never to return.
Sam has been in my heart since I heard this news. How I hope she had spent her last days loving. Living. I hope she smiled a lot and laid her head down in peace. I was not close with her. We held a close knit of the same friends back in the day, but never really hung out with each other. I'm not really sure why her death has affected me to the extent that it has. I haven't seen her since those days. All I know is there is a deep aching pain that flows through me and it feels all-consuming at times. I think about her boys and how they won't have a mama. I think of her husband and the pain he must be in...how he must miss her. I think of her mother, her father. How outliving your child must make it hard to breath. Hard to wake up...hard to live. The sorrow continues to flow through me with such incredible depth.
So now what? I guess I've realized that life goes on with or without us. We have these precious years we are here to create a legacy. A memory...A feeling. And it lives on in those we touch. Now more than ever I realize just how important it is to be kind. To really be a light. To shine and allow others to do the same. The memories we create in others is what carries on when we are gone. How we make another person feel is all that matters...