Wow! What a wonderfully even number on this day and date: 12/12/2022! 

I hope this finds you well and alive in love and gratitude for this day and another opportunity to create.

I had planned to share more about my Mother’s end of life care and passing, on 12/10, which would’ve been one month since her passing. But alas, I’m still running to catch up and recover from lost work, and to keep up with the many subsequent things to do and some complicated issues to handle.

However, I am grateful for the blessing of being able to care for her in her last two months of life on this plane, in all its precious moments and challenges.

I know that some of you have had your own experiences of caring for loved ones in their final days, months, and for some, even for years of care.

When there is an illness in self or with loved ones, or an ending of life, the essentials come into focus more clearly. All the many things which grab our attention daily, take a back seat. The dramas in the news and media dissolve into plays upon the world stage, and what’s truly important takes over. 

Love.

Love is one thing we take with us. That which we’ve given and that which we’ve received.

So for now, until more time and space opens to resume more communion between us, I’d like to share the first of two wonderful books on the topic by Laura Lynne Jackson. 

These bring greater understanding and joy on the life, love and connections between us and our loved ones who have crossed…beyond a shadow of doubt.

The Light Between Us (book)

“What the other side has told me is that the way to heal our society… the way to advance our society, is to embrace art.”
~Laura Lynne Jackon interview with Dr. Mark Epstein

SOURCE: https://youtu.be/I7oJ67l_N_Q

Our deceased loved one’s bodies are gone but their souls have simply crossed to a plane of greater love and joy and that is what they hold still present for us.

And… a poem written by my mother many years ago as but one of about four pages of writing as the only journaling she ever did.

I’m Off...

When my life on earth is done

And only ashes are left to see 

Bury them not in some lovely spot

Where by to always remember me

But strew them wide and

strew them far and

know we'll all much better be 

off to our next adventure 

than tied to an old memory

~Carol Milam Lackey, artist, volunteer, animal and nature lover, and much beloved mother and grandmother leaving a legacy of love, care and harmlessness, 2/10/1935-11/10/2022