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Living The Dashes

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I was given a diagnosis that no one wants to hear.  I am fighting a disease that no one wants.  I am reaching for life, for those dashes. 

Every day that I wake up, I am blessed.  I can look at my daughters and see their smiles, their innocence, their hope and reach out and touch their soft skin, and I smile.

The wonders of technology enable me to be in touch with my son in Alabama, my sons in Kansas City, and my family scattered throughout the states and world.  I am in their lives and they are in mine.

My words, the message of my soul, the song of my spirit reaches out through the keys and touches the hearts of those who encounter my etchings.  I am honored that someone loved my essay or was moved by my poem or even debated me about one of my essays.  The joys of my life.

I am not finished living, my dashes are still going on, those spaces that connect one thing to another, those pauses in the middle of the action to say something important.  God is not finished with my story yet.  The reason HE empowered and encouraged and enveloped me, still life to live.

The journey to the place I am now has been interesting, joyous, heartbreaking, challenging, loving, disappointing, frustrating, forgiving, and knowing.  Knowing that life is meant for the journey for the spaces we encounter through the moments we live.  I know that God is there, that love is there, that I am here.

Today, even in pain, I am living the dashes, the sounds of my daughter running down the stairs for her violin lesson this morning, the happy skip of my youngest daughter down to have her yogurt breakfast, the reminders of all that bless me.  

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