HEY TRAUMA, THE DAY WE MET…

You took my breath away. I gasped. I fought. I feared for my life. I thought only of my children. I couldn't believe I wouldn't have a chance to tell them "Good Bye" as well as all the other things I thought I'd have a lifetime to tell them — to teach them. But it was not my time. I survived. I vowed to live — to really live! It took time. At first I was only surviving. I was still gasping for air.

Hey Trauma, the day we became friends…
Slowly I found joy in small moments in life. I found joy in books, specifically in memoirs of others who I saw myself in and would think of as my friends. I found joy in becoming my truest self — the imperfectly perfect self that is me. For this transformation, I'm grateful to the wonderful, accepting, compassionate, kind, and daring people who walked into my life — or maybe I walked into theirs.

So Trauma, I thank you for waking me up! For shaking me hard. For teaching me how to live more authentically, more kindly, more courageously, more adventurously, and more blissfully than ever before.

I carry you with me not as a reminder of pain, but as a reminder of life — of how precious the present moment is. I carry you with me not as a reminder of hopelessness, but as a reminder of hope through love.

~Renata