Mark Nepo and the End of the Oprah Show

I have posted on here many times how I've watched Oprah and some of the things she has said have always spoken to me. I remember when her show was just getting started and I would watch it with my Mom when I came home from school. I also watched on/off during college and then for about fifteen years I never watched it faithfully as I was always working till five or later. In the past several years I have watched many of her shows (thanks to DVR). I will miss hearing her poignant and meaningful thoughts. I've wondered what I'll do now that I have an extra forty-five minutes each day since her show will no longer be on. I'll survive and catch her on some of her new things that she's doing over at OWN, when I have the time. I sent her an email thanking her and I've received two emails from her since Wednesday's last show. I am sure it is a mass email that she is sending out but it really does seem as she is actually doing the typing of these emails, I could be wrong. Her last email had an excerpt from Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening that she reads daily. I'd like to share this as it has really stuck with me since reading it. 

"BEING SAD"

"The idea here is not to divert the sadness, but to give it a context from life other than what is making you sad. Just as a ginger can lose its bitterness when baked in bread, sadness can be leavened by other life. When feeling the sharpness of being sad or hurt, it helps to take new things in. This pours the water of life on the fire of the heart. So when exhausted from expressing all that hurt, listen to music you've never heard of, or ask someone to tell you an old story from before your birth, or take a drive down a road near a ridge you've always meant to look out from. Look with your sad eyes on things new to you that will give you something to do with your sadness. Your sadness is the paint. You must find a canvas."

I need to find my canvas. I hope to think and act on this soon. Another way to express my sadness. I need to get out of my comfort zone and do some new things. Hopefully doing this will inspire me and help me to move on from the sadness. Our losing Leia is never going to change but how I act going forward, I can control.


On another note next weekend is the Memorial Service at our hospital that they hold each year in June. We will put Leia's ashes in her urn that we have bought. I hope to get some other things to start a garden that will bring me memories and help me to honor our Leia Grace. For now, missing you dear little girl. We are thinking of you all the time and you are in our ever presence and heart. Love you always Leia Grace.