Beginnings & Endings...

I want to start off by saying a sincere and heartfelt "THANK YOU!" to all of you who have read my first posts, and have been so supportive and encouraging! What a blessing it is to have such wonderful friends in my life.  Not a day goes by I don't keep that in the forefront of my mind!  Especially during a time like this...

It has been a topsy-turvy past two days emotionally.  And the reasons why don't even have anything to do with me.  (In advance I apologize if this is not the most put-together post.)  First, I was informed of the most wonderful news!  Yesterday, a dear friend of mine had her dream of becoming a mother come true!  After years of longing and wishing and praying, she and her husband could finally have a child all their own.  What could be better than that?!  That news made my heart smile, and filled me with so much joy for them, and for this new baby who would call my friends his parents!  Being by your friend's side (whether it be physically or miles apart) and watch them realize a dream is a powerful, deeply moving experience.  And the positivity that a new baby can bring to the world, and how it can shape our own thoughts to be more positive and bright, is something I think we all need to realize more often in daily life.

But then...

Later that same day, as this new baby is coming into the world, my husband and I get a phone call.  Not a good one.  Another friend of ours had his life turned upside down.  His son, only 22 years old, his fourth child, was burned in a house fire earlier that morning and in critical condition.  That news will stop anyone in their tracks, and it certainly stopped my husband and me.  I don't even know our friend's son, never even met him.  But I know our friend and what an amazing man he is.  That alone made my heart sink, and fill with a deep, deep sadness for the unimaginable nightmare he was now living. 

I woke this morning to the news that our friend's son was probably not going to make it through the day.  I had been awake maybe 5 minutes and I was fully in tears.  Not for myself, but for our friend and his family.  I looked out the window to see it had rained.  It was dreary and cloudy.  The picture outside that window painted how I was feeling, and I assume how so many others were feeling, too.

Within the matter of a few hours, I get a text from my other friend which includes a picture of her new baby.  A simply adorable, precious face, so cute, so full of promise and potential.  Talk about the irony of life.  Here I am in one exact moment in time exhuberantly happy to see a new baby enter the world, and also completely heartbroken knowing that a young man is every second closer and closer to leaving the world entirely too soon.  

I went about my day feeling cloudy, and constantly wondering what was happening at the hospital.  My husband spent the day there to be with our friend, so I was getting updates periodically.  I tried to take my mind off of the situation by tackling my to-do list.  My self-directed big project of the day included going through old pictures, which coincidentally enough, were from when I was 22 years old.  As I looked back at my past, it brought back some of the best and happiest times of my life.  Yet as soon as I felt that, that wonderful feeling turned into a confused, sympathetic sadness.  Here are pictures of me at age 22, full of happiness and life, and now 16 years later, as I'm reflecting on how great it was to be that age, I get the notification that our friend's son had just lost his life. 

He was the same age as I was in the pictures I was staring at.  My mind started racing with thoughts of all this poor kid would now never get the chance to do, and experiences he wouldn't get to live.  So much promise and potential unfulfilled.  So many people now had a light taken from them, and were rocked to their core.  Their life has temporarily stopped, and the future seems unbearable and so far out of touch.  Rightfully so.  All the while in a different state, another friend of mine is rejoicing, and looking to the future with jubilance.  Rightfully so.

In the past two days, I have had countless reflective moments inspired by life's beginnings and it's endings.  All I can gather from these reflections is that life is more precious that I think most of us feel on a daily level.  Each and every person has impact, and we all enter and leave the world surrounded by tears and love.  And maybe we need to focus more on the love in between the beginnings and endings.

My most heartfelt love and support go out to our friends who are new parents, and to our friends who are grieving...