23 months – that is how long it has taken me to find my way back to doing what I love!  Why did I stop?  I guess I just lost my way for a while.  You know life has a way of challenging us by pitching some curve balls in our direction.  Dealing with my father’s cancer diagnosis and passing was one event that I could not control and it was a curve ball I could not hit out of the park.  Instead it hit me hard in the heart and knocked me right on my rear end.

I am not sure how one gets back to “normal” after such a loss but I am learning to deal with my “new normal” which is life without my dad.  You see dad was my rock, he was my mom’s caregiver and spent every minute by her side throughout her battle with Multiple Sclerosis.  To see him go first was a shock and not how I thought the world worked.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that he too was handed an illness; one which would eventually steal him from our lives.  You see that is how I felt – that he was stolen from us.  How fair was it to have two ill parents?  Why did God take him when I talked to God and told him how much I needed my dad?

You know I don’t have the answers but I do know that we all experience challenges, loss, and hardships in our lives.  I believe that each experience teaches us many lessons about ourselves, other people, and life itself.  I learned that there is no right or wrong way to grieve and there is no right or wrong amount of time to heal.  23 months is how long it has taken me to find my way back to writing.  14 months and counting is how long it is taking me to heal after my father’s death.

Rumi’s quote spoke to me tonight and it was like the Universe said to me, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”  So here I am writing again.  I have learned that there is an inner strength in all of us to pick ourselves up off the ground, accept the life lessons that knock us down, and find our way back again.  No one said it would be easy to do but if we try a little every day, one step at a time, we can slowly find our way back to doing the things we love!