a celebration of life

4 years ago this day was one that was filled with a lot of emotions for me. I lost someone in my life that was incredibly important to me. And when I lost my Uncle Todd, I realized that there is no such thing as being invincible. It's taken me a long time to get to this point in my life that I feel like this happened for a reason. The people I have met and the experiences that I continue to have because of my Uncle's death are extraordinary and I wouldn't have ever imagined my life going in this direction because of something as painful as a loss of someone great.

I tried to make plans for my life a long time ago. I gave up on them quite recently and figured out that life is going to take me wherever I'm supposed to go. I can open doors or leave them closed, I am learning to constantly adapt to new situations.

We build on our grief and our losses to make us better, stronger, more alive. I have lived the fullest 4 years of my life because of my loss. I'm lucky.

My friend Katie is in town this weekend. She flew from New Orleans to see my gallery opening and to visit. Today we went out to Vedauwoo to do a life celebration. Of our lives, of the people we've lost, to the future.

We made bluebird buttons and sent them into the wind to fly with our kisses to those men that we miss.

We sat on top of a rock and shared stories. We cried a lot of deep rooted tears. We laughed whole heartedly.

We opened a bottle of sparkling cider and toasted to our lost loved ones. We ate dark chocolate and smoked a celebration cigar.

We did a lot of healing on top of this rock. You're allowed to miss someone, do you know that? I forget sometimes. And I forget that pain and joy are the exact same emotion. The one that takes your whole heart and says "understand me? this is real."

So today I remembered that missing is okay and that my soul is strong.

To my soul sister, KB, thanks for being with me on this day. Loving with our whole hearts is a good thing. We are lucky the lucky ones because of it.

To my Uncle Todd- can't wait to see you when I get there.