My Christmas Wish of Love and Hope

This is a picture of our children, taken last year on Christmas Eve. It was one of my favorite gifts because, first of all ~ I love our kids, and second of all ~ it was a gift of love. We are such a remarkably blended family. Madison, Jared and Jessica have had 13 years together to figure out how they wanted to be a family. I am so happy that they chose to be respectful, accepting and loving towards one another … the evolution was pretty much in that order. Christopher and Ali are new members of our family … husbands to our two beautiful daughters. They are young men that we also respect, accept, and have grown to love. We are so happy to think of them as our ‘sons’.

I once thought that the word ‘love’ was way overused. I thought it would be an embarrassment to keep referring to such a concept of love, no matter what the source. Yet, as I’ve grown older and, hopefully wiser, I now believe that no matter what the question …. love is always the answer. I keep repeating this in my writings because it just feels so right to me. So, on this Christmas Eve, here is my wish for you … as it is the same wish for my family~

Let love be your shelter this day and all your days. Love of self, family, friends, community, and the world. Let the love of Source embrace you and allow yourself to feel that peace. Let that feeling linger. Let love be your greatest healer. Accept the universal love that is available to you at all times … breathe it in. And send love back to the universe so that others may receive your blessings. Know that you are that powerful.

Let hope be your companion when feeling despair, loss or loneliness. Feel hope when you sense love is elusive and distant. Hope bears the promise of love and miracles revealed. Hope lives in your dreams of healing once again into wholeness. Hope fuels your faith that life is worth living and giving to.

I hope your life flourishes with love and hope in this moment and every moment of your beautiful existence.

‘Grief more than Death, renders us silent’.   Anna Quindlen

As I enter the holiday season I give pause to reflect upon the lived experience of grief. How many of us including you know someone who has suffered through the loss of a loved one? I can’t think of a single person in my life that hasn’t dealt with a loss of some kind. Some losses are more profound and heartbreaking than others. The grieving process is still the same, whether it is the loss of a home, a marriage, a friendship, a job, a friend, a parent, a pet, an adult child, an infant, or a miscarriage. I’m sure this list is not exhaustive. Part of our human journey is to experience loss, hold it in our hearts and then choose how to continue living. It is a universal condition.

Grief is a process filled with meaning because it is all about remembrance. It is never about forgetting. It’s about remembering our losses and our loved ones through memories we painfully and joyfully bring into existence. We live with our memories, clarifying what is important to us and what is not, what endures, and what naturally fades away.