About a month ago I found out somebody I once loved had suddenly died. He was young, not yet 40, had a beautiful family and a great life. He was out running and collapsed. A seemingly healthy man dying while exercising. For obvious reasons this sort of thing hits close to home with me since my seemingly fit father died while riding his bicycle about three years ago. There is a website set up by his friends and family that I visit every week or so and read about what a wonderful person he was and how deeply he will be missed. The words are reminiscent of those spoken about my father by many of our friends and family, and like pulling out my eyelashes for the pure pleasure of the hurt I go and read the posts and miss my dad and the boy I loved so long ago.

For all of the sadness surrounding this I have to acknowledge it has made me have a new appreciation of the now. The beauty of simplicity surrounding every day. The present. I find myself really not sweating the little things and instead enjoying some extra time with the kids or reading a book instead of cleaning up the living room. Maybe I’m passing off my laziness on an excuse but I rather like to think of it as an evolution of sorts, an exit from grief and an acceptance of the current love in my life. Not bad, I think.

My birthday was earlier this month, a wonderful day made all the better by  party thrown for me by dear friends. The day after, Cassidy, Devon and I headed over the mountains to lower lands where peaches grow freely. We picked and ate our way through the orchards, at least Cass and I ate while Devon climbed the trees in search of the perfect peach.