Buttercups in Bloom

And just like that, you begin again. The sun has risen and set without fail. Every 24 hours have brought us closer to a new beginning and yet the familiar.  Today as the sun rose it beckoned us home, to the gentle breeze that is ever present on our front porch.  The sun began to point the way to the trees that are caught in between winter and the slow arrival of spring.  The sun whispered a new beginning and returning to a place where people know your name, embrace you in a deep river of love and stand with you when the darkness slowly encroaches upon you.  In the hours that lay before us, we will pack the car (if you think see the Beverly Hillbillies on the interstate just shake your head and laugh because it's the Diamond's trying to squeeze everything from bedding to luggage to backpacks into a very small Prius), walk the halls of McCallum Place one last time and begin our journey home to our mountain.  We step into the days ahead with trepidation, courage and a st

Grief It rolls in with silence. It overtakes your being; cluttering your mind and stilling your being. You try to busy yourself to shew it away.  You mark off your to-do list not with vigor but as if lifting another weight.  Thre is no working it away or sleeping it away, or closing your eyes wishing it away.  You must stand and welcome the grief before it can be released. Today is a day where grief has rolled in and settled into my core, into the places where it is begging for me to close my eyes in hopes that it might just disappear when I awoke.  It has settled into the depths of my mind leaving me searching and longing for assurance.  Grief has made each conversation and task feel as if it just might break my very being. In 5 short days, we'll be leaving St. Louis to return home to our sweet mountain.  This city that seemed like a foreign land just 8 weeks ago has become home for Emma and me.  Unfamiliarity gave way to confidence.  I've developed a routine and gai

Yesterday the room was quiet. Bags filled the empty space on the floor. Teenagers sat beside parents on the couches. Parents looked through the leaflets and materials they'd received. The silence in the room was deafening. Yesterday morning while I sat in the waiting room on the couch for to meet with our Dietician I felt the weight of all that was transpiring.  New residents were arriving, and all I could do was to feel the heaviness, anxiousness, sense of loneliness rising up from the silence. Wetness rose in my eyes from the feelings of knowing.  I understood some of the heartaches that had led them to this moment. I understood how long the day would be for both them and their child.  I understood the questions that lie beneath the surface but would not receive an answer.  I understand having to turn your child over to people with whom you had never met; trusting that this would be the answer, that this would lead to health and a new journey.  The silence was deafe

No judgment.   No critics. That is the mission statement at the gym I recently joined (no, I didn’t join the gym as a resolution to get fit, I joined because I’m living in St. Louis, MO for a bit and wanted to ensure that I was tending to my self). The mission is clear and well understood. It is proclaimed across every piece of equipment and proudly displayed on the walls.   I have been thinking about the mission and the freedom that it not just merely proclaims but freely gives the moment you walk through the doors. I have not set foot in a gym in quite some time, my exercise routine has taken place outdoors for the past 5.5 years and walking into the gym was more than a bit intimidating. Yet every single time I feel as though I should be pushing the level on my stationary bike or the treadmill to a higher level I am reminded that there is no judgment. Literally, no one is judging me, no one is criticizing what my workout routine involves or doesn’t involve.   There i