#LoveIsEverywhere – the beginning

Photo credit: Angele McQuade

Someone asked me the other day when and how I first started posting my #LoveIsEverywhere hearts, and I honestly couldn’t remember. I just looked back through the archives here, and I believe this may have been the first one, way back in November of 2014.

During these past two and a half weeks I’ve been in California shepherding my father through his final week at home and now mourning his loss/celebrating his life, so many of you have sent your own examples of #LoveIsEverywhere to me publicly and privately. Since words can barely express say how very much my family and I appreciate your love and support, today seems like the perfect time to revisit how it all began. Thank you, and know that I love you all, too.

From November 2014:

I see hearts in unexpected places all the time as I go about my day, and they always remind me that love is everywhere. Sharing some of these hearts here with you is one of the many ways I aim to send love right back out into the world as often as I can.

Found this hidden symbol of love while slicing apples for my own love’s lunch, and that got me looking for love everywhere. Stay tuned for more!

 

 

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#LoveIsEverywhere 24 January 2019

My last three visits home were so filled with family matters that I couldn’t find even a moment to escape to the ocean a mere two miles away to get my feet deep in the sand and water as I otherwise always do. Today, the day after losing my dad, there was no way I wasn’t going to find my way there even with all the arrangements waiting to be made. We had a quick family lunch at the pier, all of us reconnecting on the way to and from various urgent errands, and as soon as I gave our server my order, I excused myself from the table, fled outside to the sand, then finally got my feet where they needed to be.

 

I’d been there only a minute or two when a woman I didn’t know walked over, smiled, and said she couldn’t help watching because I reminded her of some sort of 1920s bathing beauty standing there in the water, in my dress and leggings, shoes in hand. Then she noticed my tears and I told her about my dad, and she hugged me in a way that meant everything.

This is the picture she took of me, hand on my heart as I gazed at Catalina Island in the distance, crying as I thought of my dad and the many, many walks we’d walked on that same beach, laughing as a rogue wave (almost certainly sent at his request) unexpectedly splashed up to my knees as a sort of baptism in the sacred solace of my beloved Pacific, reveling and then relaxing in the certainty that my dad will always be with me, no matter where my feet are planted, or whether or not I’m appropriately attired for the experience.

So thank you, Melissa-from-Georgia, random stranger but somehow also bosom confidante, for the picture, for the hug, but most especially for the visceral reminder that truly, #LoveIsEverywhere

 

#LoveIsEverywhere 23 Jan 2019

One of my dad’s favorite songs is Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens, and that’s the song I sing in my head each morning as we greet at least one more dawn together from his hospital bed in my parents’ living room. My youngest brother is finally on his plane from England, so now we wait.

While I wish Dad and I were spending this morning walking on the beach just a couple miles away, the view of his beloved garden and a little quiet singing will do just fine.