written by a great writer John Roedel

death is the wildfire
that rips through
the forest of our life

 it scorches the ground 

it chars the rocks
it engulfs the trees

death is the fire
that comes to consume
everything

~ but it can’t

because after the fire is gone
there is always a miracle waiting
under the ashes of what our lives
used to look like

~ and the miracle is called grief

grief is the slow motion
recovery
that follows the insatiable
fire of death

to grieve the
loss of our beloved

means that death
didn’t burn everything

our adoration and memories
of our beloved remain fully
intact underneath the soot
after death rages through

you see,
my love,

death may knock
down every tree
in our forest

but since

grief is the aching itch
of recovery that
we can feel stirring
beneath the scalded ground

it means that death
doesn’t get the last word

~ love does

love is the sapling
that come after the
devastating fire

love is the grass pushing
up through the once barren
fire-licked woodland floor

love is relentless
and there is no element
in existence that can
ever destroy it

love is always working
it’s way back to us
no matter how hot
the wildfire blazed

grief is proof
that we didn’t
let death win

death wants us
to feel numb

~ to feel utter despair

but when we allow
ourselves to grieve

we keep the ashes
from hardening

grief is the fluttering
inside of us that
reminds the world
that although our
world has burned
down to the roots

that there is still
life within us

and if we can hold
on long enough

life will eventually start pouring
out of all of our smoldering wounds

ecologists say that sometimes
when forests burn down
they can explode into thousands
of wildflowers

they call it a “superbloom”

~ that’s what grief is

death may burn our world
but grief allows it to grow back

maybe it will never
look like it used to

~ and maybe that is totally okay

because maybe
just maybe

~ grief is meant to change us

grief is the superbloom
that comes after the inferno

                             ****

I hope heaven has a Sands Point where you can look at nature and fill your heart with love and childhood dreams

And here it approaches again. The month your daughter was born and the month God gave me my best friend and son

Written By John Donahue

Photo by Shawna Burbeck artist

What we had was a bond that can never be broken. I miss our talks and our calls. I never understood how you suddenly became broken. We walk through life and manage our insecurities. If a person comes along and breaks us, we lose our inability to hold on. I know because she tried to break me into a million pieces. They pray on the weak and fragile. Taking what you love the most and holding it from you. You will never break me. Love will always win over evil.

Cruelty, conflict and ultimatums cannot find a place in a sensitive soul who is broken. No one should ever be given an ultimatum between the people they love. It tried to find its way to me. To break me . it almost did. Now I know what it can do.

Photo bt Deviant Art

Looking back at the past 5.5 years without you, i think about the painful days that I have lived through. Time has taught me that I do not have to fit into places that break my spirit. It has opened my eyes to give my heart freely only where it truly belongs. Not to waste my time on people that don’t get it. You will never change the sociopaths and the narcissists that try to take your joy. Do your best and that’s all you can do. Living the life of a highly sensitive person comes with a heavy price. You can’t let the world take you into its grips and squeeze the light out of you.

I choose to find ways to keep your memory alive. God has put perfect strangers in my path that have dropped stones of gold for me to walk upon. I cannot help to think that is you lining my life with the light that you gave me every day. “Be the things you love most about the person you have lost” This is my purpose. There are still hard days and I know there always will be. That is my connection to you. The pain, the love are all one bridge to each other. Here we go into 2022 my son. I will look up at the stars for you.

When Sadness Finds You by Erin Hanson

They say happiness will find you,
But I think sadness will find you too,
It sneaks up on you in darkness,
Just when you think you’ve made it through,
It opens holes in what was solid ground,
The kind you never know are there,
Until you go to take another step,
And find you’re standing over the air,
The world around you passes by,
In blurs of colour and sound,
Nothing around you making sense,
As you continue you plummet down,
You can’t remember how it started,
And you don’t know when it will end,
But you know that you’d give anything,
To stand up on your feet again,
Sadness is that feeling,
When the falling doesn’t stop,
And it saps your life of meaning,
And of the good things that you’ve got,
So when you finally hit rock bottom,
And you look back up at the sky,
What you once had seems so far away,
The only thing left to do is cry,
People all yell out “save yourself”,
Calling things about “happiness” and “hope”
But they’re too busy with their lives to realise,
It’d be a lot quicker if they let down a rope.

-e.h
You can never expect anything from people, even the ones who love you have their cares and worries too. It’s hard when you’re down and they don’t even know it. You fight hard for those memories not to sneak up because you work so hard to bury it and forget it. Sadness hits you sometimes just out of the blue, and you have to fight it over and over again until your heart would truly let go. Emotions are part of us, we can’t escape them but we can work our way through them – sadness, pain, and negative thoughts creep in no matter how hard you seal it, somehow it will leak. And the hardest thing is, all you need is a pinch of understanding that would be enough to let it out and move on. Forgiving yourself for making a fool out of you is a tremendous undertaking, but it starts with you. You have to forgive yourself over and over again and accept that you are another human and you are the one who has the power to redirect things in your life, loving yourself isn’t selfish, it’s necessary.

Written by John Roedel

Some day you will be the answer to someones most desperate prayer

By just being there in the same room that they are in as they gently fall apart.  And at that moment you won’t need to say anything.  You just need to drape your hand over theirs.

Your life will some day be the rainbow at someone else’s storm.

Your life isn’t just yours. It belongs to that person.