If Life give you sadness... find a joy within

What is sadness anyway? Thoughts of what could have been? Missing someone? Compassion for those who are less fortunate than yourself? Aloneness?

Sometimes it sneaks up on you and holds you in its wave until it falls back like the tides of the ocean, leaving you naked and vulnerable. Sometimes we welcome it like an old warm blanket preferring to curl up in it for a while eventually loosing it to sleep.

To some it overwhelms until they feel they might drown. Other times it allows us to shed woeful tears releasing pain from within. But always, always, to know sadness is to recognize JOY. So sometimes, I don’t mind being sad, it’s just another perspective check.


My friend E.D. bought me a book not long after Gary died. The words and drawings are by Cooper Eden and the book is called ‘If You’re Afraid Of The Dark Add One More Star To The Night’. Nicholas noticed it last night on my bed stand. He picked it up and read through it. “Mom” he said, “This is a very good line…” “If the sky fills with clouds…let the rain do your crying for awhile.” I told him I liked that line as well. The book is a beautiful book and as usual, my friends seem to know just the right things to give me and usually just when I need it the most.

The other day I got a note from a friend in Texas, she talked about “kindred spirits”. Anne, you know, Anne of Green Gables? She mentions them in her story. One dictionary’s definition of the term kindred is as follows: 1) Of the same ancestry or family; kindred clans. 2) Having a similar or related origin, nature, or character: kindred emotions.

I have many good friends and we are all of the same mind set. Interesting how we all seem to have the same commonality and how that commonality is love based. There is a feeling one has when they meet someone when it comes to kindredness (a word not in the dictionary I might add). It is a feeling of comfort, of coming home, of knowing that person from lifetimes before. It is an energy that embraces you instantly as if you had finally found one and other again. A kindred spirit can be felt miles away and instantly as in the case of my friend Roxanne in Texas or Stephanie when I read her writings. A kindred spirit can be long term and deep as a well, like my friends Evelyn and Lois. It is always a spirit that is with you, like my Gary, like an angel who watches over you.

Kindred Spirits ooze the energy of love and compassion. Some even offer to send you bottles of crawfish boil despite the fact that you may think them insane! Crawfish boil or a compassionate ear, we are all one in the same and that’s what makes us kindred spirits.

I had a date tonight. At the last minute I cancelled. He was very gracious about it and I am grateful for that. Call it cold feet; call it not ready, call it totally exhausted from a long day. Nick has gone to play Xbox with his cousin, the girls next door are doing their own thing… tonight will be spent reading and going to bed early… and that’s ok also.