Today Made My Top 5 ~ Rockstar Mamas, Cancer & Bliss

1/21/12

I can hardly begin to compose myself to write this blog tonight. Today was – simply – one of the TOP 5 BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. Yup, weddings, babies, then today. That’s how my list would go.

#499 on the invisible, unwritten Bucket List of my heart – completed.

Eleven beautiful, stunning, ROCKSTAR Mamas walked into my life today, and changed me forever. They were in Sedona to be part of Camp Soaring Eagle’s Winter Oncology Retreat, designed specifically for families of children who have cancer.

Ingrid has a 3 year old daughter with ALL Luekemia. She's been in treatment for over a year, and still has 1 yr to go

For three days, dozens of businesses, and an amazing team at Camp Soaring Eagle made it possible for these families, whose lives walk the line of life and death daily, to simply be – family – enjoying one fun-filled weekend of magic, and respite from the traumas of childhood cancer.

Allie Olson of Allie Ollie Boutique participated in giving each one of these women a complete head-to-toe makeover today. It was my pleasure to be there to meet these women, watch their remarkable transformations unfold, and hear their stories of “mini-miracles” and strength.

“I feel like I woke up this morning and went to a fantasy land, and I haven’t left yet!” said Mary, whose 14-year old daughter has been fighting leukemia bravely for the last year plus. I fought back tears when she began to unveil the rest of her story. Her daughter’s name is Hope – and how fitting – because for Mary, Hope is her hero. She just started losing her hair again, but she still gets straight A’s in school. Her Dad had a heart attack just before Christmas, so now both parents are now taking time off work to focus on the health of their little family. But Hope keeps…well, hope. One day her Dad said to her, “Hope, God has a plan for your life!” And Hope replied enthusiastically, “Well, it must be a good one!”

Allie Olson (center) and two ROCKSTAR Mamas

Another ROCKSTAR Mama (whose privacy I suddenly feel a Mama-bear instinct to protect so I’ll just call her Susie) was the face of the day for me. Her story almost seems too shocking to share, too unbelievable to be real and true, and sitting in an arm chair at a boutique across from me. I asked Susie if her husband was here at Camp with her and she replied, “No, my, uh, ex-husband shot me with a shotgun, and now he’s in prison.” Now, her seven-year old son has leukemia, and she must face it alone as a single mother to two young boys.

I’ve handled a lot of pain in my short life, but it doesn’t begin to skim the surface of the daily tragedies these ROCKSTAR MAMAS face. Tragedies of having to explain what cancer is to a two year old, or having to bolster your fourteen-year old daughter’s confidence in the midst of losing her hair again, or helping your seven-year-old son understand why his friends don’t come around to play anymore.

My 4 year old daughter's grief...

I came home from my experience of fussing happily over these ROCKSTAR Mamas, who earn that title for nothing less then simply showing up for every day of their lives, and I looked at my daughter, whose faced so many of her own personal tragedies losing places and people, with new eyes. A simple evening turned profoundly blissful in it. Tickle fests, handstand races, cuddles and giggles with Mommy and Daddy were a mini-miracle for us, because for all the mourning, a perfect evening is a miraculous reprieve. For us, a joyous night that comes not on the heels of any recent tragedy, is a memory worth treasuring.

I’m humbled, though, at imagining the mini-miracles these eleven Moms find each day – theirs could be as simple as “My child didn’t vomit today,” or “My child laughed today,” or, “My child didn’t die today.” It makes my mini-miracle moments more grand in light of theirs, and it made spending a day with these ROCKSTAR MAMAS well…BLISS.

It made today…one of my personal TOP FIVE. Yes, absolutely, one of my TOP FIVE.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this incredible story on how we can KICK CANCER’S ASS!

Honored to stand amongst the ROCKSTAR MAMAS - that's Allie & I in the middle.

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I named these Mamas from today ROCKSTAR Mamas for another ROCKSTAR Mama who moves me. Her son Ronan recently died from Neuroblastoma Cancer at the age of 3. Her blog has received 2.9 million hits for voicing the raw bravery she was must muster every day just to go on without her little boy. She named her website ROCKSTAR Ronan. I name her a ROCKSTAR Mama, among the lovelies I met today.

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Of course, I couldn’t write this without giving you an opportunity to feel what I felt today – if you feel so moved to participate in what Camp Soaring Eagle does in any small way, they host these retreats twice a year and many more camper weekends throughout the year. They are a non-profit organization focused on supporting the whole family, giving them one memorable weekend, or even just a day, away from hospital bills and medical treatments. In many cases, the memories they grant these families are some of the last they have together before a child passes away. It’s nothing short of miraculous what they are doing, and words can hardly begin to convey how deeply I feel that. Here’s their website. 

My Baby Died…And Taught Me to Believe

That little voice within me is always right but, it’s taken me a long time to learn that. I tend to drown her out with the noise of my mind.

She knew, when I first found out I was pregnant, on my daughter’s birthday, May of 2009, that it was the beginning of an end.

She tried to tell me something was wrong. Every time I uttered those two simple words, “I’m pregnant,” she’d given me that kick in the shin within – it said, “Not yet, wait.” But I didn’t listen.

My Aunt Debbie, 51, had just passed away in March, after a long battle with lung cancer, and the pay cuts for Kory and I both had hit in January, and again in May, decimating our income.

When we found out we were pregnant again, with our second child, JOY wasn’t even the word for it. It was like we were climbing a sheer cliff, scrambling at slippery rock walls with bare fingers, and someone had just tossed us a rope from above.

The day we found out we were pregnant with our angel baby.

In many ways, that baby was the only good thing happening for us.

We were already picking out names and planning the nursery, when I woke up – on Kory’s birthday – to find the end had come.

My baby died, and with it, a little piece of me died, too.

The miscarriage was the most physically and emotionally painful, personal experience of grief I’ve experienced yet, out of ten more deaths since.

I felt like my body betrayed me, and I had so many questions my Doctor could never answer – why did this happen? Was something wrong with me? Would I ever be able to conceive again? Had I passed some invisible age barrier in the short two years since I’d last given birth, and now I’d unknowingly become an infertile maid? Was it a fluke? Was something wrong with the baby?

My mind could torment with these questions ‘til I reached my death bed, and never find answers.

I needed to find peace – not necessarily a definitive answer on how or why this had happened – just peace. And for me, that was maybe just accepting NOT knowing, NOT being able to understand.

This is something I’ve struggled with repeatedly since – because loss doesn’t make sense. There never is a good reason why. It simply is as it is, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.

But we can find peace, if we trust the voice within.

I have learned that peace is accepting this moment as it is, whatever it brings. That doesn’t mean I have to say, “YIPPEE! I’m so happy my baby died! I can’t wait to find the gifts in this!”

It means, it’s ok to feel angry, sad, scared, betrayed, and bruised. It’s ok to feel the pain, and acknowledge it. Facing the pain is how we create a path to peace.

I highly recommend journal-ing if you are going through any sort of transition. It's a place to dump all our raw feelings, then in re-reading, it gives us self-empathy.

So, I bought a journal, and I ripped my pain out onto those pages in large scribbles and scrawls.

The day I went back to the doctor to have an ultrasound that would show an empty womb, no longer bearing the beauty of my would-be baby, I took my journal and my pen to the creek, and reminded myself of the beauty around the pain. Simply surrounding myself in beauty completely changed my perspective. Life was no longer just the pain of the loss, life had beauty, too.

I closed my eyes, listened to the quiet whispers of the creek beside me, and asked for my peace and answers from within. I wanted to understand why this baby had come in, then gone. Why? Why did it come at all then? What gifts did it have for me? I believe, “All things work for good in my life,” so what good could possibly come from this?

The answers I found in my quiet reflection were this…

That baby didn’t come for nothing.

I thought maybe she’d come to teach me how to be a Mom to two, or how to give empathy to a three year old, or how to play catch with my first little boy.

Instead, she taught me FAITH.

I’m not talking faith like pick a religion, believe it and preach it. I’m talking FAITH…believing in the unseen, believing in me, believing in that little inner voice within.

Just a few days after the miscarriage had begun, I wrote in my journal.

No one could have prepared me for this experience. I have been completely caught off guard by how deeply it has affected me, and how far reaching the pangs of utter devastation and loss have spread into my heart. But what comforts me is this intrinsic knowing within that this experience has led me directly to…not away from…the beautiful, wonderful little being that is coming my way. Suddenly, I do feel a strong connection to a baby boy coming – I can almost see him! I can feel him, hear him (a little giggle), and sense him. He is playful and joyful and ready to come and play. He’s excited to meet us and know us as his parents. He’s already connected to Kayta and experiencing her as his big sis. He’s-a comin’ and he’s right on time.

I named that baby “Faith,” for what she’d taught me, and moved forward believing another baby was coming soon.

Just a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant again.

I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in Spring of 2010.

A few minutes after my son was born...

After a whirlwind natural delivery, I hemorrhaged and lost over a third of my blood. My parents said they thought they were going to lose me, as they watched my Doctor fight to find the source of the bleed and stop it. In the end, I made it through, but spent the first month of my son’s life not being able to stand up for more then ten minutes because I was so weak.

He was worth it though! He was a dream come true in so many ways. See, I had lost the first baby boy in my life – my nephew, when he died just two months before his third birthday. And I had lost “Faith” with the miscarriage.

But, in the end, that voice within was right again.

My son, Kanon

I now have the bubbly, cuddly, giggly little boy who adores his big sister (he’s sitting here kissing me repeatedly as I write this!). He is everything I knew he would be, and I treasure him more every day now, for the battle I fought to reach him. I always knew I would make it to him, somehow, I just had to have a little “Faith” along the way.

Not every story has a happy ending like this one, but every story can have that peace that comes from within – that “accepting the not knowing.” It’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen it again and again in my life. Change, death, pain are all a part of this world. But if we have a little faith, we can find the beauty around the pain. We can remember that every end is also a beginning.

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As I was writing this, I kept hearing one line of a song in my head, “Trust the voice with…innnnn.” I went looking and realized it was an old Christina Aguilera song, “The Voice Within”. Listening to it again now, the words took on new meaning.  My gift for you: The Voice Within

Grim Reaper Girl – Pt 3 “Death Has Made Me More Alive”

I woke up yesterday morning scared to death of what I had done. I hardly slept the whole night before.

It was so scary to tell you how I really feel, what I’ve really been through. I was afraid you’d think of me as a failure, because at times I haven’t been able to figure out how to pick myself up again. I was afraid you’d think, “What she’s going through doesn’t begin to compare to what I’ve been through.” Or, maybe you’d think I’m just a whiny little self-absorbed brat.

But instead, you called me…brave. Wow.

From Hippies https://www.facebook.com/HippiesPage

I cried shirtsleeves of tears over your comments and posts. You being here, you showing up for this…it’s giving purpose to the pain.

So, I am insisting upon myself that I continue to be brave. I didn’t go through all this stuff for nothing. I drew all these experiences to myself to learn something…and then share it.

So, take what you can. I’m just here to try and give to you what it’s taken me 499 losses of every freaking painful sort to figure out.

I have so much more to say…such mind-blowing, life-changing, eye-opening, profound experiences that have brought me to the altar of my soul…and it was there that I found the greatest awakenings in the deepest pain, the purest joy in the deepest cuts of sorrow.

I’m so glad you’re here, and can’t wait to share more.

So now, for chapter three of Grim Reaper Girl.
This is it right here…are you ready?
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EXPECT BLISS

A couple weeks ago, I met a man after service at our local Unity Church on New Year’s Day. The morning had been a powerful “releasing of the old” and “bringing in of the new.” It was on this day that I decided to GIVE UP MY GRIM REAPER GIRL STATUS and start using my voice to echo the strength and beauty I’ve found in my experiences. No longer a victim of life…a creator of it instead.

I remember Michael Mirdad, the speaker, saying, “What’s going to happen now that you’re not hiding behind your pain anymore?” And I thought, “Oh, wow…what IS going to happen?!”

I had shared in the service, a little of my story, so afterwards, this man came up to me and said he, too, had witnessed many deaths in his lifetime, and he understood how hard it was. We talked for awhile and then out of the blue he said something I’ll never forget. He said, “But I just get up every morning and I try really hard to BLISSFUL.”

“Wow, you try really hard to be…BLISSFUL?!” I thought! I get up every morning and think, “How am I going to survive another train wreck?!”

I was so taken back…by his almost “expectation” that life could hand him pure bliss every day.

That was an ah-ha moment for me.

Remember what I said in the first post? That it was at my lowest point that I decided I didn’t want to live a life of loss anymore?

Well, I don’t. I DO NOT LIVE A LIFE OF LOSS ANYMORE.

Bad things still happen. People still die. But I’m not living a life of loss.

I see the joy and beauty around the pain. I’ve learned the path to peace. I’ve learned to accept this moment as it is, and to treasure it.

Borrowed from Oprah

Mark Nepo, author of “The Book of Awakening” (a book Oprah thinks every human being on the planet should own) shared a story on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday that changed me.

He said one morning he stepped outside and was just beholding the beauty of a gorgeous, sunny day, taking in all the opportunity that brand new day held for him, soakin’ it all up when BAM. He stubbed his toe on a rock. So bad he thought he broke it.

The pain overtook him. All he could think about was the toe, the pain.

And then, he had his own ah-ha moment. He looked up, looked around, and remembered the beauty of the day around him.

And he thought, “Is everything the pain in my toe? Or is the pain in my toe, within the miracle of the sun and the day and everything else?”

When I heard this, I decided…I am not my stubbed toes. There is beauty around the pain. I choose to see that.

Neale Donald Walsch put it best in his book, “Communion With God.”

“Your life lived is…a reflection of your deepest understandings.

If your life is an experience of constant joy and total bliss, then you truly have it. This does not mean that your life is without the conditions that can cause pain, suffering, and disappointment. It does mean that you live in joy despite those conditions. Your experience has nothing to do with conditions.

This is unconditional love, of which I have spoken many times…When you have unconditional love of Life, then you love Life just the way it is showing up, right here, right now.”

Yup, that’s me. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I strive for every day! That’s my little saying, “Finding peace in the middle of my own hurricanes!” I am not my stuff. I am not my circumstances. My joy comes from within, from knowing what a beautiful soul I am, what a beautiful life I am given each day.

I have asked myself repeatedly, why did I draw these experiences of so much DEATH into my life? I have known in my heart that it was, in fact, to experience more life. I’ve tried to figure out how to put this into words and here it is, so beautifully…

“…every moment is a dying. Every moment is the end of your life as what you were, and the beginning of your life as what you now choose to become. In each moment you are recreating yourself anew…

The way to produce more life is to experience more death. Don’t let death be a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Experience each moment of your life as a death, for that is, in truth, what it is when you re-define death as simply the end of one experience and the beginning of another.

When you do this, you can have a little funeral each moment for what has just passed, for what just died. And then you can turn around and create the future, realizing that there is a future, that there is more Life.

When you know this, the idea of “not enough” is shattered, and you can begin to use each golden Moment of Now in a new way, with new understanding and deeper appreciation, with larger awareness and greater consciousness.”

Yup, that’s been my gift. I use each Moment of Now in a new way. I have grown that deeper appreciation and awareness, in spades. I know, “This too shall pass.” I know that everything is always changing, that people come and go in my life. So, I try really hard not to suffer through letting people/things/stuff go – instead, to look at the space which is created when they do go – and remember that now, it can be filled with something new.

This means that every day, I look at my children with full awareness that their time may come tomorrow. I’ve watched two small children in my life die unexpectedly, and I lost a baby before my son was born. I know deeply, that every second with my two precious blessings is a gift.

But I don’t use that to live in fear. Instead, I simply try not to waste any of my moments with them. Does that mean I’m Supermom? No, it just means, I soak up every moment, big or small. Tonight we went to Wal-Mart and made a party out of our daughter spending a $15 gift card from Christmas – it’s the simple things, I tell ya, the simple things.

I try not to miss a birthday party or a dinner invitation because ten times now, that birthday party has been the last memory I made with a loved one – the memory I cherish now more then any other. And the one time I didn’t go to a birthday party…was the last time I could’ve held my nephew alive.

I reach out and connect with as many people as I can each day (even though being a hermit would be SO much easier and simpler!) because that’s what life is about! Because when I die, I want a funeral full of people saying I made them feel like they mattered in this world.

I give away as much as I possibly can because I know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing. And because creating a constant flow of energy back and forth, and around, between all of us – that is life! If we stop giving, we stop the flow of life itself!

I’ve found the most incredible faith possible…I mean, it is unbelievable how I trust the Universe to provide for me now because I have been at my breaking point again and again, and every time, found exactly what I needed to get through.

I don't know for sure...but I've always been told these orbs that show up in photos are our angels. I opened this photo to insert it here & suddenly noticed...10 orbs around me. This was taken on my birthday 2 weeks ago.

I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL, people – heck ya, I said it and I mean it – I can’t believe it’s true but I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL!!!!! Because I have a new day before me to create anything I want.

I’m not in survival mode anymore. I’m in full-throttle THRIVE mode.

I still struggle, I still need constant daily reminders of all this…but I have that now, with 12 new angels around me – they are my constant reminder.

Yes, death has been my gift…because it has made me more…

ALIVE.

And when I die, you better believe, I’m gonna die…a BLISSFUL woman.

Grim Reaper Girl – Part I

I’m afraid to share what I have to say. 

I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me. 

I’m afraid you don’t want to hear it.

My name is Megan. I am the Grim Reaper Girl.

Just incase you don’t know my story already…in the last three years TWELVE people in my life have died. I have sat at the deathbeds of five. I watched Cancer (and yes, in my book it gets freaking capitalized because it’s a monster) eat four of them alive, slowly and painfully.

90% of them were under the age of 50. One was five.

If I averaged it out, I’ve been to a funeral every other month for three years.

Oh, and I’ve moved, I’ve moved a lot, running around trying to make a better life for our family in this recession…we have moved four times now. We had the American Dream, and lost it. Thank God, because let me tell you trying to hold onto that ridiculous image of perfection was only an American nightmare.

I have had to redefine my meaning of home, because it so often changes.

I once called myself a “City Widow” and I have also given myself another certification: self-made Grief Specialist.

But, not a lot of people know all this about me because well, I’m the Grim Reaper Girl. Maybe they think if they stand too close to me, they’ll get cooties, and death and pain will rub off on them, too.

In the Spring of 2010, after my latest slew of tragedies had taken my three year old daughter’s best friend, my husband’s job, our new life and new home, a friend of mine informed me, politely, that the general population of Facebook had deemed me…

Duhhn…dunnnn…dunnnn….duhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn…

A downer.

Yup, it was official. I was singlehandedly bringing the entire cartoon-posting, music-streaming, “did you see the latest Lady Gaga video?” mood of Facebook down by keepin’ it real.

I was…the Grim Reaper Girl.

I’m keepin’ it light here, because, well, I did title this post “Grim Reaper Girl” and I’m a little worried I might scare ya off if I get too real, and then I might turn into a downer…but really, that whole Facebook thing was pretty tragic for me. It sent me, bags packin’, into a self-induced hermitville where I stayed for quite awhile, painfully afraid to tell the world what was really going on with me because I didn’t want to…bring anyone else down.

Then, my Grandpa died. Then, my Grandma died. Then, we had to move…again. 

That's my Grandma on the left there, reacting to the news that I was pregnant with our 2nd child that I miscarried 2 weeks after this photo was taken, one month after my Aunt's death. On the far left, that's my Grandpa Bob who died last year. One photo. Three soon-to-be ANGELS.

But, I didn’t post about any of it on Facebook, and I didn’t tell too many people…I was too scared.

It was just a couple months ago, right after my Grandma died, that I reached my darkest point of the last three years. I stayed in my room for five days and didn’t leave. I stopped eating, stopped drinking. I didn’t care anymore about anything. It hurt too much to be alive. Life had become synonymous with too much intense pain. And, I hated myself for not being able to pick myself up yet again…and be a good Mom, wife, lover, friend. I felt so…alone.

My husband called our parents and siblings and said, “What do I do?” He’d seen me down before, he’d seen me grieve A LOT. But after all the losses, he’d never seen me like this.

I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to continue to live a LIFE OF LOSS either. I’d stopped being able to see the beauty outside the pain.

I’m blessed to have amazing family and a few friends in my life that always show up for me, but it really is rare to find someone, anyone, who can face death alongside you.

My Grandma had faced her own inner demons, and because of that, she had developed an unusual sense of compassion and an ability to honor and acknowledge all the little deaths in my life. She was one of the only people who called me up after every single loss, big or small, to sit with me in the pain and acknowledge it.

She never treated me like the Grim Reaper Girl.

I think it was because of this that her loss hit me harder then any of the rest. Plus, well, the whole slop of all the losses piled on top of each other like a cheap Carl’s Jr. hamburger kind of made me feel like the “meat” on the bottom of a dogpile.

Worse then the pain itself, though, was feeling like I had to hide it from the world, like no one could really understand or see the pain I was in.

Then, my husband’s Dad called me. This is a man who isn’t necessarily spiritual in my mind. He’s simply a good man.

And he said to me, “The amount of stuff you’ve been through the last few years…and all you’ve been doing is trying and trying and trying to find a way to make it all better and it just keeps getting worse…it must be getting really old. I’m so sorry sweetie.”

In an instant, my heart melted. The tower I had built around it came down brick by brick. And I took the metaphysical gun away from my head and light came back into my world of darkness.

He was a simple and profound reminder that I am not alone. He looked at me and didn’t just say, “I’m sorry.” He said, “I see you…I see the pain, I see how hard you’ve been trying to survive all this loss, and I get it.” His words gave me the strength to pick myself up off the bottom of the dogpile and start seeing the beauty around the pain.

Oprah said on her final show, and you’ll hear me quote this line again and again because I have learned that this right here, folks, is really what it’s ALL about (not the hokey pokey!)…

“I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common — they all wanted validation. They want to know, do you hear me? Do you see me? Does what I say mean anything to you?”

My question to you is, do you see the person sitting next to you at work? Do you see the man at the gas station swiping your credit card? Do you care about them? Do you let them know that?

Can a SOCIAL NETWORK be a SOCIAL SUPPORT GROUP? Can we go past "Likes" and also dole out, "I see you's" and "I care's"???

And what about Facebook? Its called a SOCIAL NETWORK. Every day, in 468 characters or less, or with one click of a “like” button, you have a chance to say, “I see you, I care,” to 499 of your closest friends and family. Do you use that power? 

Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

I wonder how we would treat each other if we all walked around with signs on our backs bearing the terms of our battles.

The night my two year old nephew died, I left the hospital for a few minutes to run a family member home to her kids. I hadn’t eaten in two days. I hadn’t slept. My entire world had just changed, as if a movie set had been broken down and another completely different backdrop had been put up in its place. I stopped at a gas station to get a snack and I looked around at the people in the gas station, just going about life as usual, and I thought, “Do they have any idea what I’m going through right now? How would they treat me if they knew what I’m about to have to do?”

A man cut me off on the road on the way home, and I thought, “Would he have done that if he knew???”

How would you treat every stranger if you looked at them like they were fighting the battle of their life?

If you’d run into me in that gas station and seen a sign on my back that read, “My 3 year old nephew died last night and I’m about to go hold him for the last time,” would you have stopped to shake my hand? Give me a hug? Hold my hand? Would you have taken the time to say, “I’m sorry” ???

I bet you would have.

The next time you’re out grocery shopping or filling up at the gas station, the next time you glance at a stranger and feel that urge to look down and just go about your business back on your little island in your little realm of the atmosphere, I want you to stop and look at them again. Look at them and ask yourself, “What battle are they fighting?”

Then…ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.

It doesn’t take much. Just a smile, a word, a gracious opening of the door or a, “No, you go ahead.”

I can tell you right now…that ONE LITTLE THING…could save a life. 

Sometimes, the most basic form of acknowledgement is the most profound gift you can give a person…especially if they’ve started to think the world doesn’t see them, doesn’t care.

A smile has saved my life a million times.

A few words have eased my pain more then 10,000 hours of therapy could.

A few brave friends…willing to stand beside the Grim Reaper Girl…have made my life worth living. In fact, they’ve made a life of loss turn into a life of beauty. I can honestly say, I’ve never been more at peace, more filled with joy then I am today. I’m not a wallowing mess of depression, I am a strong, courageous woman on a mission now…my mission? To tell everyone I meet, “I see you, I care.” 

So, the question is, can a SOCIAL NETWORK be a SOCIAL SUPPORT GROUP? Can we be real or can we only go so far as Lady Gaga will let us go?

Take a risk, post something brave, something real. Maybe someone will tell you they see you. Maybe someone will CARE. 

Remember what I always say…
Life’s greatest question is “Why are we here?”
I believe the answer is, “For each other.”
This post is dedicated to anyone who has ever looked at me and with their eyes, heart or words said, “I see you, I care.” You are the beauty in my life. You remind me of the beauty and joy that is always surrounding the pain. You’re bigger then the pain…you’re the best Band-Aid a Grim Reaper Girl could ever ask for.