Please email me directly [icon above] for “autographed” International Shipping or multiple orders of our Book. Thank You.

“If you know someone who has lost a child, and you’re afraid to mention their Child because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died — you’re not reminding them. They didn’t forget they died. What you’re reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that is a great Gift”
~ Elizabeth Edwards ~

Lost in the near by Dunes. New Mexico

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and could not go back to sleep. On the same day, 14 years ago my Son also woke up about this time but a few hours later went back to sleep… for ever. January 26th has again come around as I still stand, quite often honestly wondering why? Am I on a mission I don’t know about? I surf these waves every day but today their walls are a bit higher and the current is stronger. I am pensive, I feel alone and maybe even lonely. I still “wonder” a lot even though the questions with no answers have diminished in their numbers. It is a day I live by the hour, by the minute, with the memories on how “this day” went by that year past.

Life is a Rainbow caught between the Storms.

I read an interesting quote yesterday “Grief is like living two lives. One is where you pretend that everything is alright, and the other is where your heart silently screams in pain” and I did not agree with it. Mainly because I don’t pretend. Why do so? I know some Friends care and some don’t while rightfully so forget, which is quite normal considering the busy lives of today’s demands, but overall, why pretend when such pretention is directed at my own expense towards others. I just live it and I do it honestly. So honestly that sometimes I feel I am upsetting some Friends because of the simple fact, and I don’t have any other way to put it, I don’t care what happens around me, there is nothing else as precious to lose. I know it is harsh but so was the sentence 14 years ago.

Fast forward another Year.

I say that I don’t care because I really do not have any other way to express how I feel. It has to do with my rearranged priorities and I am only hanging on to them because I have to admit that a lot of good things, some borderline even miracles, have happen to “us” these past years. Lance left me, left us, but he is still amongst us. As much as I live the present mixed in with the reels of the past I also live throughout a future which will never happen and the word “never” when it drops like a heavy weighted hammer is so terminal, so definite without an ounce of thought that would include a “maybe”. Lance would have been 40! Probably married with children… His intelligence and smarts would have procured him with I know a great job. I would have had grand children to play with, to love and hug! So I missed out. “Royally” as I call it.

Memories of “South of the Border” near Presidio, Texas.

I don’t endure Life. I realize what its substance is made of. I don’t feel sorry for myself as I am only one amongst so many others paying the same price. I just am. The colors have never regained their brightness, shapes their sharpness while I try to cut my path on a stage a bit blurry at times while I often sit back and wait for it to focus. “Things” look back at me! This home… it’s furniture… this truck~camper parked in the driveway… even Old Faithful right now chained up waiting for warmer weather… I try to give it all some meaning as they all do have a purpose wether it is mobility, shelter or comfort. I almost want it all to become alive and even talk back to me! But a truck does not talk back. A home does not either. One way conversations does not get me too far. So all is just “here and there”, all are just “objects”. There is nothing human about them. I miss Human…

Spirit always on the watch…

One might ask if I am losing it! A question sometimes I even ask myself. I am not I assure self, but how can I be sure? This path is so individualistic or is it? I cannot find any instructions and manuals. I have to make things up as I go along and if I am not too sure of the next step I have to again sit back and wait… to focus one more time. It is too often mentally and physically exhausting but then again who is not? The days are always filled with tasks and even if avoiding them, the mental aspect takes over on a path filled with guilt because of such avoidance towards that list of “to do”.

Spirit blending in…

The memories are so vivid, much more than others from my Life. I hurt from the pain he had to endure. What does a 26 year old knows about death when his last days, his last day and hour has come? I must say he was brave, courageous. More than I would have been. Almost as he was “pretending” but I know he was not as the moment of truth kept approaching. It was not only his mental aspect but physical. I took a photo of him around his last Christmas, a photo I came across not so long ago and I so much regret having taken it. His Mother and I would sit at the kitchen table hoping it would be his last day of pain as Hospice and Friends of his would come in and out of the house. Hoping… and when it happened we were not ready. Far from it as reality slapped us with a force never felt before under any Life’s circumstances.

Taking cover. Storm approaching.

I miss him so much that Life has given me a stage were I cannot miss anything else anymore. I remember those first few years on the road with then practically nothing as the bulk of it was filled with grieving but also with an incredible free stage. That stage is still free these days but has almost totally changed or is it because winter times sees us with more comfort than we ever had. I never felt hardship but if we are going to call it as such, today’s hardship is almost non existent. The physical kind.  All can go, vanish! All is so unimportant for me. The one thread, mind path and feelings that have never changed has been my Love for my Son… It has endured much these past years! I should today have a big smile on my face just for the fact to have a roof for Spirit and I and can put my feet up but I don’t. I can’t pretend.

Stay well, Ara and Spirit