A day at a time, the log jam is loosening and the ideas are flowing. The sun is coming back, energy is returning, and I am pulling myself blinking from the retreat of hibernation. For my own mental and emotional health, this year needs to be less about driving myself and more about reducing commitments, taking care of myself, and finding my passion again. It needs to be about healing.

Some years, the garden just sucks. But this year, my flourishing herbs and giant carrots and surprise petunias all worked together to heal my hurting heart. And I am so grateful for it.

Sometimes it is easier said than done to be gentle on yourself. Use this wallpaper as a reminder. Happy Friday.

I know that sunflowers think their job is to propagate their species by creating seeds. But today? It was to teach me that even when we've been hammered by life, and everything seems wretched, and we are broken all over the ground, we can still be beautiful.

Bitter or better? We can choose how we heal from loss. It's all in what we focus on.

"It's your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you." - Rumi

Daisies and chicks with wisdom to share.

"Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life." - Anne Roiphe

Every day is another step forward. Every day, grief morphs and whirls and changes into a different shape, like dancing aurora borealis. And lately, I have been surprised by joy.

"Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit." Henry Adams. Boy, do I hope that's true, because chaos abounds right now!

In a way, every day, every moment sine June 3, 2015 has been a "first" in this first year since I went from being merely a parent of four boys or an adoptive parent to a bereaved parent. Every day, there are things that trigger my tears. Some of them are quite small and seemingly insignificant--but even something that might seem small to others can leave my heart weighed down by stones too heavy to lift for most of the day.

Are you trapped in the tarry black hole of dwelling on loss? Are you jumping trains trying to hide from it? Or are you figuring out how to keep moving forward with loss as your travelling companion? How to avoid a train wreck on your road to healing, and your dreams.

There is no "one-time thing" when it comes to grief.

"Death isn't the end, it's a beginning." - Jennifer Love Hewitt