You Can Dream Big Once More

A long exhale of breath I didn’t even know I was holding left my body and what is left is a feeling of an ended chapter and new beginnings.

For 5 years Steve and I have been caring for sick or elderly parents. First my mother and then his father.

While on certain days the care of an ill loved one can feel like a burden, in the end it is a gift to be able to assist another, especially a person who gave so much of themselves to you, out of their pain and into their next journey through death.

It was a hard 5 years.

Lloyd, Steve’s dad, was from Chicago. My mom moved us to Chicago when I was one year old from DC. Chicago had always felt like home to me, but in my heart I’m an East Coast gal. There is nothing like traveling back to Maryland and the sense of familiar peace I feel there.

Our recent trip to Chicago was right on the heels of Lloyd’s passing and was a celebration of my dad’s 10 year anniversary to his wife Joy.

While sitting at their celebration and hearing their vow renewal, all the past troubles, the divorces, the illnesses, the sadness for time lost, the sadness connected with change, the struggles, the mistakes, washed away. I was left with a sense of calm and excitement for the future.

I had a sense of what happens as you get older and life changes, people get sick, people fall in love, marriages are created, relationships change, babies are born and life continues in it’s steady hum like the tides.

There are constants in nature. The sun will rise and fall, the birds will fly south and the coyotes will howl. There are constants in life. The people we love, our family, our friends, our work, surround us with a sense of rhythm and a base beat that helps us march through time.

Sometimes there are things that happen that disturb this flow of time. The earth shakes, the pipe busts and floods the house, your mother gets sick and the father who was once so strong becomes an old man.

What is good about life is that it can always start anew. No matter what there can always be a new beginning.

In a way this trip to Chicago was a new beginning for our family.

I am honored to have a step-mother who has opened her heart so wide and freely to me and my children. I am honored to have a father who is healthy, successful and kind. I am lucky to have a husband who has loved me every minute since 2008. I am lucky to have his family. There are also my children who make me feel alive every single day, even when they are yelling and especially when they laugh and run.

I fully believe that life is better when it’s fun and I have reached a sense of confidence in my ability to make it that way which fortifies the look to the future where life is open for anything to be dreamed or created.

The future is very bright and from pain new beginnings can arise once more.

If you are going through pain my desire is that even the glimmer of hope that things can and will be better comes as a slight beacon in your storm.

It will get better. You will be able to dream again, to love again and you will be able to laugh without the sadness holding that happiness back from full fruition.

You will be able to dream big once more.

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5 responses

  1. This was an incredible post. Poetic and spiritually lovely! You’ve always seemed as though you were dreaming BIG Jennifer, and always had a smile on your face, even when things were tough. I’ve always thought you are a bit of a special person and one of those people noone ever has to really “worry about” due to your strength of character. Dream on girl and make ‘em all come true!

  2. Aw Jenny – so beautiful – like you – and the life you create for yourself and your family! Your dad and I always say with so much admiration “Jenny gets whatever she wants! She makes it all go right!!”! Love you!!

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