The light inside.

I am reminded on an almost daily basis in as a hospice nurse that these "things" that make us who we are, well they can go away. Life is unpredictable, and "who we are" is probably not the things that we do. I've learned that it's a kernal of something much greater. It's the light that we put in to the world. We can make that light as bright and shiny as we can, but I'm also aware that one day the light will dim. I watch people struggle so much with the dimming of their light, with the loss to do and be all that they once were.

I hike, because it makes me feel strong. It brings me to places that fill me up with beauty. It makes me feel at home when my heart and brain start feeling lost.

I knit and craft and write, because it puts a piece of me out in to the world, something of myself that even I knew not existed before it was created. 

I am a hospice nurse, because as hard as it can be sometimes, I get to a part of the most poignant moments in a family's life. I get to give love and instruction in a time when life is filled with grief. 
I took this picture last Thursday when a lovely patient of mine lost her battle to brain cancer. I was touched by what it's going to mean for her husband to walk by this sign every day.

I run, because it takes all of the hard, emotional stuff that is stored in my body and it releases it into the universe.

I love, because I can, because I've been blessed, and because it is the truest direction for my heart to follow. I love because it envelopes me in the most gorgeous , heart wrenching sweetness. I love, because as scary as it can be to feel so vulnerable, I'm stronger, and more beautiful in that place.

This is what I have come to believe. I believe that light will never go away. I believe there is something unique and beautiful in each of us, something that will shine, some way, some how, far into eternity. Maybe it's in the way we touch each other's lives. Maybe it's in the tangible things we create. Or maybe it just is. Sometimes you just can't explain it. You just feel it.