Inspire me

Two years ago, my life’s road took a sharp turn in an undesired direction.  Wildly scrambling to make sense of the stark changes, I started an Inspiration Board — a bulletin board on which I kept notes, pictures, cards and little tags.  Each held a message or an image which inspired me.  Photos of my cousin Paul Orso as a young man long before his battle with ALS, of my favorite curmudgeon, my son, and my shared children nestled amongst little post-it notes in scrawling handwriting, cards, and poems.

Yesterday, I took two years of inspiration down and started fresh.

On my Keeping Shelf, I found last year’s Mother’s Day card from my son; that went on the empty board.  In Saturday’s mail, I received a thank-you card from Jennie Taggart Wandfluh’s children.  As I wiped my tears, I tucked it into the inspiration board.  Cleaning a pile of papers which had fallen from a drawer, I found the photo of my son on top of the mountain that he made me climb and one of my Aunt Della before her strokes.  Onto the board they went.

I kept the inspirational items from the last two years, sliding them into a plastic zip-lock bag, labeling the bag with the date.  Those mementos got me through a dark time and helped me move into the light.  Now I can seek out that which inspires me to reach further than I have ever known, higher than I thought possible, deeper than my soul ever dared to plunge.

It’s the twenty-fourth day of the twenty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  It’s also the birthday of Ms. Jennifer Helene Rosen — one of my most inspiring friends.  Happy day, Jenny!  Here at the Holmes house, life continues.

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