I had a beautiful crystal bowl. This bowl was my life. During this life of mine this bowl has been full~ full of adventure, experience, good times and bad. But it has always been full. The crystal this bowl is made up of has always reflected out what my life has been like. A prism of color and light. Family and friends have always added to this bowl of mine, and from it~ its contents have sustained me.

Last year my bowl dropped and hit the floor.   It broke into many pieces. Everywhere. Quite sudden. For years I have carried around this bowl of mine knowing damn well how fragile it really was. Sometimes I forgot that it was crystal and took it for granted like we often do when our focus is on the contents and not the bowl itself. Other times I sat paralyzed at the thought of what would happen if I didn’t have this beautiful bowl of mine. Such times of reflection are an important grounding tool to keep us wise and grateful for the abundance that this bowl of mine provided but we should also go on about our lives and not ponder to the point of not living.  There was a hair-line crack in this bowl of mine between knowing and living.  When I lived, I didn’t know and when I knew~ I stopped living.

Right now I am sitting on the floor where the pieces of my bowl lay on the ground. I have swept them into a nice little pile and I am taking inventory. All the pieces are beautiful still. They are still reflective. They hold memories and energy and love. I can’t put the pieces back together because the truth is the bowl would leak and not function like it once did. I can’t throw the pieces away~ it is my life lying there in that pile.

I haven’t figured out the next step. What to do? How to get off the floor?  I am giving over control of this next step to God. How. Where. When. I will follow my own advice to others and look for the signs. Notice and Believe. The answers will be there. In its own time and in its own way.

I will honor these pieces and set them up so the light shines through them into my space. And I will wait in my broken reality with my heart open. And I will know. I have faith that I will know.

I am living through the first anniversary of Jordon’s diagnosis of terminal metastatic melanoma skin cancer. Those six weeks between his diagnosis and his passing are still very clear and alive in my mind. I was bracing myself for some heavy memories and hard times but I have stayed busy and in forward motion and focused on Jackson and his happiness. Until this morning.

This morning was different. I listened to a song this morning that I played over and over again during the crisis last year and was reading posts from dear friends on Facebook when it hit me. A searing, painful, stinging memory barged in unwelcome in my mind. A flashback that probably happened around this day last year. I was under severe stress trying to help Jordon as much as I could. He was at home with family. My task for the day was to get a handicapped parking pass, chemotherapy medicines from the drug store, and a cane so he could walk. I had just left the drug store and went into a government office to apply for the parking pass. The lady behind the counter began to explain the parking permit and how I would have a temporary pass until they could mail the original one in June and that it wouldn’t expire for another five years. Bam! ~ like a sucker punch to the face it hit me. Jordon wasn’t going to make it to June, much less be around for the next 5 years. These reality checks hit the human psyche like a ton of bricks. They can disembody your soul for a moment to save it from the pain your mind and body feels. I could barely walk out of the office. I found my way home somehow and came in and sat on the couch. My mind and body and spirit shut me down cold. I didn’t fall asleep. I didn’t stay awake. I just shut down and went somewhere else for a while. I think God and our angels take us out of ourselves for moments when life is too much. I don’t know how long I sat slumped on the couch unresponsive but the chiming sound of my cell phone brought me back from where I was. It was my good friend Colby from back home. Her voice sounded angelic and caring and comforting. I was twelve hours from home and her voice and concern pierced through my pain and anguish and brought me back to my life for a minute. I finally started to cry a little. She did most the talking and the conversation was short as I was still awaking from the experience of the day.

I don’t have a real positive spin on this moment. And really this journal is just about getting this memory on paper so it doesn’t eat me alive today. It needs out of me and away from me because the energy of it is too much to be contained inside my mind. Maybe this is about release of powerful negative experiences and allowing yourself to breathe through a horrible flashback. If I didn’t write about it or talk about it and kept this pain inside I think it would be destructive to my health and emotional wellbeing. So I share this story with the universe today to release this pain. I give it away so I can move forward. Thank you, Universe. Thank you, Colby. Thank you God for allowing and absorbing the transfer of this energy into another place for transmutation and diffusion. Thank you for making that possible so I may heal. Thank you for giving me a portal to let go of this memory and now I allow in gratitude for you and all the amazing gifts you have bestowed upon my life. Amen.