4 Years

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

-Henry Van Dyke

2 Years

3 Years

Today has obviously been a tough one, and there have been other completely unrelated things that have made it harder. However, there have been some very sweet and tender moments that remind me that I am loved, watched over, and so so very blessed. Many big changes have happened in the past four years and there is not a single time I haven't wished my mom could experience it with us. But through it all I have a best friend of a sister, a husband who adores me, children who are my whole world, and friends who go above and beyond the definition of friendship. When my parents left this world they left my sister and me in good hands. And thankfully the two of us share a bond that has been made stronger with each passing year. I love my sister and she has become so much of the woman my mom was. She is strong, she is beautiful, and she doesn't ever let anything get in the way of her dreams. I know in some ways I am also like my mom. And I will spend the rest of my life with her as my hero. So as I finish this post, I hope to inspire those of you who knew her to emulate her amazing qualities in your own life. And for those of you who didn't... then Cowgirl Up!