A New World
There have been quite a few changes in my life over the past few months:
I’ve moved across the state of Florida, hung up my writer cap and turned in my badge for the Sun-Sentinel to put back on the old comfort of photojournalism with a new outfit in the Tallahassee Democrat. This change has been been welcomed and is an opportunity I’m thrilled with. Then there is the other side of the coin: I lost two of the most important women people in my life: my grandmother, a family member that has meant the world to me recently passed away. For her I write:
You spoiled me rotten as a child. Not just with the way you loved, and your love was unending for all of us, but in the way you made sure I always felt taken care of. There is no one you met that didn’t walk away feeling as if they truly mattered to you, a testament to how selfless you could be, leaving others marveling at how incredible you are.
I will always believe myself to be a stronger person for knowing this world could create such beauty. I will forever aspire to be as gracious, caring and wonderful as you.
Falling with those same tears, within the same moments in time, I lost, quite possibly, the love of my life – a woman that I’ll always cherish the time I had with, even though my memories are challenged to break past the pain that now embodies my recollections of her.
I couldn’t have been be more devastated. To her I say:
Erin, I hope you find the life you’ve always dreamed of, I’m sorry I won’t be there to see the joy it brings you.