Post #7
And dogs. Big dogs. Everywhere.
Apparently, they “belong” to the community. They hardly ever bark. I am guessing the locals provide food and water.
They lounge in the sun, greet visitors, and hang out… even in front of the meat counter inside grocery stores.
Different culture!
Post #5
Beautiful flowers…
Post #4
El Calafate sports colorful buildings, including a painting of beautiful guanacos, which are believed to be the ancestors of llamas and alpacas.
Post #3
We flew to Buenos Aires, then boarded for our next flight.
While getting on the airplane, I saw pure joy on Jason’s face. What a treat that was for me to see, after all he had been through—the end-stage cancer journey I endured from 2009-2011, with everyone certain I would die; the breakup of our family; and his older brother Tristan’s two years of addiction and then overdose death in 2015.
Jason had been through sooo much and now had come out on the other side.
My heart sang.
As we flew across Argentina, outside my window I saw strange marks on the ground—lines and circles. I thought, “Surely not Nasca lines in Argentina.” They turned out to be the result of mining.
Later we crossed over the beautiful turquoise Santa Cruz River, set against reddish clay soil. It was gorgeous.
We soon arrived in El Calafate in the Andes Mountains of Patagonia.
During 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and this winter I won Artists with Disabilities Access Grants from the Ohio Arts Council. I am using them for valuable editing assistance for 63 Coping Strategies for those grieving a loss to addiction. We are preparing for the publication of my book, When You Lose Someone to Addiction. This time Judy Levin will help me move my writing to the next level, making it even more open-hearted, warm, and readable.
I am grateful for the opportunity the OAC gives me to work with Judy Levin!
There is always something for which we can be grateful. Even when we are in deep and terrible mourning. Even when we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.
For some, Covid is providing a time for creativity to flower beautifully and freely. One such person is Connie Lasorso, who wrote her first book, The Fairy Beck: A True Love Story.
I am honored to be in her book through the character Brightly. I cried when I read this fairy’s description:
“The fairies were sampling the newest batch of Brightly’s summer rose elixir. Brightly was an expert gardener of roses and she was a fine maker of elixirs. She had rose colored wings and wore a thorn as a necklace. The thorn stood as a symbol for loss. Annabelle wondered about the thorn but did not ask about it. Some thorns are private. Annabelle dimly recalled the two thorns she had noticed on Kricky’s table.
“The essence from the rose flower had a very high vibrational level which caused every fairy who drank it to lift into the air as if they had troubles maintaining gravity.”
The rose thorn is such a great symbol for the loss of a child because it represents the pain of grieving a deep love.
Connie did not know that a year after my son Tristan overdosed on heroin for his third and final time, I had picked up a bag of rose petals for tea-making. I love the aroma and savor the flavor. I save this delicate drink for special occasions when I feel like I need a little lift.
Like the fairies who lift into the air when they drink Brightly’s rose elixir.
Perfect, Connie. Thank you for this great honor.
Source:
The Fairy Beck: A True Love Story by Connie Lasorso, pages 102-103, available at https://the-beck-bookstore.myshopify.com/
During 2018, 2019, and this summer I won art grants from the Ohio Arts Council. I am using them for valuable editing assistance from Mary Langford for the narrative about my son’s life and 60+ Coping Strategies. We are preparing for the publication of my book, Grieving an Addict. Mary helps me move my writing to the next level, making it even more open-hearted, warm, and readable.
I am grateful for the opportunity the OAC gives me to work with Mary, who not only has natural talent, but who spent years years at the right hand of the master storyteller Sidney Sheldon!
Do you long for a sign from your dear one who has passed on? Do you receive possible signs, yet wonder if they really mean something? Or do you find that synchronicities show up in your life that are so amazing you find it hard not to believe they are gifts from your departed loved one?
I feel fortunate to have been given another wonderful sign this year, on the fifth angelversary of my son’s final overdose. The first astonishing synchronicity arrived just before that first horrible Christmas without Tristan. An unordered gift box appeared on my deck, and the sender said I could keep it.
Last year a gifted tea rose had exactly four blossoms on exactly my son’s fourth birthday in heaven. It has not produced a single blossom since.
The third most amazing gift arrived on Friday, the day before Tristan’s fifth angelversary. I was startled to find a beautiful little fawn curled up in my garden only six feet away from where I was working on my deck. She stayed in that spot all that Friday and all through Saturday, the day my son left our world five years ago.
I spent as much time as I could on my deck, despite temps in the mid-90s, to be near that fawn. Not for her safety—nature was doing its best to take care of her—but for my own sake. I was surprised to feel a sweet sense of solace from being near her, because her doe-eyed gentleness and innocence reached out and enveloped me.
On Sunday morning when I walked outside, she was frantically pacing along the south side of my yard, distressed because her mommy stood on the other side of the short fence. At one point the fawn turned around and ran directly toward me. I did not want to frighten her, so I talked softly while slowly moving a hand. The motion caught her attention and she abruptly stopped. She stared at me for a breathless moment; then she wheeled and ran back toward her mommy. She soon found her way through the fence.
This lovely creature spent two days with me, the two exact days I would have wanted her here. The two days when I most needed a little extra comfort in my life.
Did my son, or something else, arrange the perfect timing of this beautiful gift? I’d like to believe so. I choose to receive these moments of grace as Divine gifts to help ease my way, to help me know my son is still with me and that our love goes on into eternity.
What is the best synchronicity you have received since losing your loved one?
Do you feel like Notre Dame Cathedral, gutted by the fires of grief? Do you feel like a husk of your former self, burned out, weakened and emptied?
That’s how I felt after my son Tristan drug me through two years of addiction and then a deadly heroin overdose. The terrible sorrow left me completely bereft, weak and vulnerable.
Our Lady of Paris is now weak and vulnerable. Yet when I see post-fire pictures of the church’s interior, the altar and cross are still standing. The deepest heart of the cathedral is still intact.
After my son died, my heart was broken, yet still intact. I did everything I could to grieve in a healthy way, just as the firefighters did everything they could to salvage what they could of the massive church.
Now this monument is at its most vulnerable and most in need. And so are we while dealing with our devastating losses. Yet people are coming forward to rebuild her, as people came forward to help me rebuild my life, giving generously from their hearts and their time. I hope you are blessed with the same support. To turn down assistance is a disservice to ourselves and others, just as it would be a disservice to Notre Dame to not rebuild her.
And as a service to my own soul–especially because I had been sent home to die from cancer in 2011–I have done some bucket-list traveling. This past fall I was most fortunate to visit Notre Dame de Paris, specifically to light a candle before the crown of thorns, a Christian relic experts say dates to the first century. I wanted to pray for us and for our loved ones lost to addiction. To me, the crown represents an injury to the head sustained by Christ–just as our loved ones sustained injuries to their brains. I sought, for us all, the compassion of The Compassionate One, one who bore a head injury and who was intimately acquainted with sorrows and grief.
Fortunately, the crown of thorns was spared from the fire. And so was the sculpture of Mother Mary with Jesus, and the symbol of resurrection above them.
Let Our Lady stand as a symbol of hope for you—that after the phoenix fire has burned its destructive path, we can rebuild and restore our lives, with our hearts still intact. It will take time and effort, but we are worth it.
And that is what our dear ones would want for us.