Dear beautiful Flower, I only met you a few months ago through the Christmas Giveaway Thread. And ever since that moment, you have made a huge impact in my life. Telling me about your family, hubby, your kids, the grandchildren, Kitty, Scruffy and in every message I feel how much you breathe and embrace life. How, despite your declining health, you still attack each day with the enormous energy you still carry inside. Through music, writing, drawing and everything else you love. You truly are a woman of many talents and qualities.

You also told me, not too long ago, how this journey opened your eyes to things that matter most and what a weird experience that is. We tend to make a big fuss about stuff, that in the great scheme of things is totally irrelevant. And by saying that you opened my eyes too.

In the end riches is not found in a big house, two cars, a billion dollars in your bank account (even though that might be convenient), but in how you live and love life. The friendships, the people you connect with, the ones you touch and the ones you love, not through what you own, but through who you are. Riches is found in being amazed with nature’s wonders. A beautiful flower garden, a sunset in a red purple sky, bright stars in that pitch dark ceiling above us. Riches is finding peace in total silence. Or a child’s laughter. That’s riches.

You have shown me and I am sure many with me what really matters in life. And through that you motivate and encourage all that you touched and met on this journey to your next adventure. And you show us that, no matter how dark life seems at times, there is always light, as long as we focus on what true riches means. In that knowledge we are never alone.

No matter how you look at it, dying still plain and simple sucks. For everyone involved. Even though most of us see it as a journey to reconnecting with the loved ones we lost, it also means we leave other loved ones behind. And that hurts, on both ends.

To let go is not easy, for no one. But if there is one thing I have also learned through the years with the ones I lost, it is the following: To die is to move into the hearts of those who love you.

And in that thought you will live on forever and for always. You are never really gone...