At times, my nostalgia for our family life as it used to be--for our own imperfect, cherished, irretrievable past--is nearly overwhelming.

At times, my nostalgia for our family life as it used to be--for our own imperfect, cherished, irretrievable past--is nearly overwhelming.

I know I can't make time slow down, can't hold our life as it is in a freeze frame or slow my children's inexorable journeys into adulthood and lives of their own. But I can celebrate those journeys by bearing witness to them, by paying attention, and, perhaps most of all, by carrying on with my own growth and becoming. Now it dawns on me that the only way I can figure out what I'm meant to be doing is to try to understand who I'm meant to be...I will not waste this life, not one hour, not one minute. I will not take for granted the blessing of our being here...I will give thanks.

Alone-in moments of prayer or meditation, or simply in stillness-we breathe more deeply, see more fully, hear more keenly. We notice more, and in the process, we return to what is sacred.

In stillness, we find our peace. Knowing peace at home, we bring peace into the world.

As I loosen my grip on the past, as I keep taking one small step after another in the direction I want to go, I discover I'm being supported and guided after all, and that as soon as I'm willing to embrace change, something or someone comes along and shows me how. Magic wasn't something I had to go in search of; it was here within me, all the time. When hearts are open, when love is flowing, magic happens.

Stay focused on what is beautiful and abundant even as illness carves more and more of what you love away