I grew up near Chicago in a little red house by a park with a church down the block and a Dairy Queen minutes away, if I got on my bicycle and pumped really hard. I earned my bachelor’s degree there, became a CPA, launched a career as a financial professional, and lost a dear husband to cancer; all in a very short time. "Only 27 years old," I said to myself when I got in my little Dodge Colt and headed out west without looking back even once. I was a widow, full of anger, drowning in sorrow, numbed by the vacuum of emptiness deep at my core, and hungry for hope. But hope was elusive for a really long time. Even after I met and married my husband of 40 years, earned my master's degree in finance, made new friends, and had a successful career, something inside of me still wasn't right. I was fighting for joy every day, searching for meaning, and longing for calm. Sickness and death had taken their toll on my life, and that's when I launched a search for more, something bigger, something different than the unsettled life I had learned to accept as my own.

 

"Feel the feelings," I started to say as I poured out my heart on a page every day. "Feel the moments of change and learn how to think your way through all your pain." Then a butterfly paused near me, folded its wings for a moment and caused me to wonder, to ponder, to think, and to breathe.

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