Perspective

I sit writing a recipe, looking out the window. A gentle breeze sways the sun kissed trees. With the season, my thoughts trace six years. I held our daughter, looked out a very different window and tried to make words of words that should never be made.

How were we to tell a nana who sang, “You Are My Sunshine” and a papa who made goofy sounds and faces that we transitioned their girl from palliative to hospice?

It’s one of the hardest I’ve experienced, but with time, my life view changed. There isn’t good or bad, just different.

Challenges, blessings, hardship, and appreciation intertwine and evolve.

Then, our backs were pinned with Aviana’s health and especially quality of life, but we had her to grab, hold, and kiss any time we wanted. With her free, an ocean of peace flows, but we’re caught in the waves of missing our well and hurt child.

Clarity came with living and caring for Aviana. Truth, love, compassion and the division of what’s important became easy to decipher.

Through illness and death Aviana showed life. We’re thankful for and carry her and those lessons with us.

From then to now, life shifts. Good and bad are non-existent, just different. I’m good with that, because through the swings of life, sickness, death, and between—we’re shown gifts to help continue along the way. And through our toughest obstacles, we remain, which reminds of a quote I held to right after the accident.

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

– John Lennon

At the time, I didn’t understand how many ends there are, but quickly realized.

So adopted another as well –

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”

–  Anonymous