Things that we feel with the heart make the biggest impact on our lives. Money can buy us physical needs and experiences but it is what we feel with the heart that makes those moments stay with us. The best part about it is that we don’t even need money to feel with the heart!
Helen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched- they must be felt with the heart.” In a world full at artificial intelligence and technology, feeling is what sets us apart. We need to make sure we never lose that or we lose the beauty of living.
Take a moment to close your eyes, place your hands on your heart and just feel. What does it tell you? What visions do you see? Use those feelings to remind yourselves that this is the amazing part of being human, the ability to feel. If you start to feel sadness and despair, hold tight to those beautiful things your heart has felt and let that anchor you back to happiness and peace. Look for that one glimmer of hope and love and let that guide to those moments your heart felt beauty, peace, and happiness. Those positive feelings will grow stronger than the negative ones if we focus on them. Have an amazing day!
“I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.” ⁃ Leonard Cohen
Today makes 5 years since you physically left this earth Beppu. The other day in the car I started to tell the girls, “I wonder what Dad would say if he could see us now?” Then I stopped and had to remind myself that you do know and you can see, we just can’t physically hear your response. You know everything that has happened these past 5 years. I mean you always told me and your sisters that you were the “highly intelligent” one after all. I do wonder what you’d say still but when I close my eyes and listen to what my heart feels, I know.
You’d be so proud of our son who has conquered so much and graduated from high school this year. He’s following in your footsteps and headed away to college to major in… what else but computer science.
Our daughter is finding her groove as a junior in high school and has your amazing ability with math. I think she’s “highly intelligent” as you’d joke with us. Our youngest is back in the studio doing what she loves most, dance! Me, I’m just like that quote above. I’ve found the crack in my snow globe to allow me to see and live life on the other side of sorrow and despair, and find that fairy tale again that we once lived. I know you were a huge part of sending James to us. He loves Halloween, Simpsons, and video games as much as you. Football, yes but totally opposite teams. Thank you for sending a guy who will endure shopping too… bonus.
We have lived through so many milestones these past 5 years that I couldn’t even fathom making it through. Birthdays, holidays, graduation, driving lessons, rites of passage, and the list goes on of things you should’ve been here for but God had other plans. Then I need to remind myself again, you were there… no, you ARE there. Each cool breeze, each rainbow, each time I’m not sure if something’s possible but succeeds, that’s you. I know it was your love for all of us that has gotten each of us this far, a love of family that forever knows no boundaries. Just like the second half of that quote, “so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.”
Instead of despair, we will live this 5 year mark as a celebration of the legacy you’ve left behind. Time does not erase. Time gives us the ability to process and to heal. Those scars left behind are the roadmaps of this journey. We still got work to do but it will get done. We will continue to break through the snow globe and live the life you always wanted for our family. This is the gift we can give to you for the foundation you have given to us. Thank you. But hey, you already knew that too, didn’t you?
PS- Thank you for the beautiful rainbow as I left work today too.
You made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
You were more than a dream come true.
You made everyone feel like a friend.
You made friends feel like family.
You led by example.
You reached for the stars and never settled for less.
You never asked anything of others you wouldn’t have asked of yourself.
You are the reason people feel they can accomplish anything they put their mind too with perseverance and hard work.
You were an amazing husband, father, son, friend, coworker, and so much more.
You always will be.
You leave a legacy behind that is immortal.
You continue to be our inspiration.
You are now our angel. Cover me with your wings as if they were the arms that used to hold me so tight because you, Mark, are incredibly missed. You are so very loved. You are amazing. You.
My Life in a Snow Globe 