Greetings,

It is Sunday.

I am sitting outside in one of my favorite spots, writing. The back yard view is of beautiful green trees that boast new life, bright flowers planted earlier this Spring and that particular shade of blue that is a new day’s Oregon sky. Cars are passing just beyond the side yard. I don’t mind the traffic noise. It has become oddly comforting to me and whispers that our planet’s life is moving forward. I am going with it.

The storm in my life that had me unraveled the past months has passed. For that, I am grateful. I am stronger than ever and heading toward some major goals as a writer. Getting back on my intended path is a welcome feeling I intend to more fully embrace than I have in the past. That path is littered with blessings well within my reach.

The book I am presently finishing (Just Keep Breathing) is becoming known and anticipated. It’s Introduction has gone outside this country’s borders already, and I have received messages from people as far away as The United Kingdom asking when they can buy a copy. That, in itself, is a success I have received with open arms. I am ready for more.

Writing this book is not the easiest thing to wake up to each morning because it forces me to, once again, face the reality that I brought two amazing children onto this planet. When all is said and done and my journey here expires, I will be exiting my life saying goodbye to only one. The subject matter is harsh. Cruel. Difficult. It concerns the suicide of one’s own child, and that is a very dark place from which to write.

Many surviving parents left to deal with such a significant and complex loss have started their own publications, but they lay unfinished gathering dust in the depths of unused closets. I understand why, but that will not be the case with mine. Though I have always been self-motivated, the good people I surround myself with are pushing me forward and reminding me that my story needs to be told. And so, it will.

Alongside writing priorities, there is much to do. My daughter is just finishing her first year at Oregon State University. I remain her biggest cheerleader – an engine stoked to push her through the remaining years of formal education. Fellow writers are writing, and I can encourage them too. They each have a story to tell, and it needs to be written. The great universal law of give and receive is at full play in my life now. I am supporting good people, and they are supporting me. Together, we will arrive in a well accomplished future.

Life has its challenges, indeed. But there is beauty and goodness around each of us. We need only to notice it there and remember that even in stormy weather, the blue of every sky is just behind those clouds. It will become visible again. Maybe it can be seen even through the darkest of skies, if we look hard enough.

As my loved ones have said repeatedly over the past few years, “Forward is that direction.”

Let’s go there.

Jana