From Sonya

On Celebrations of Life
So this week while I've been recovering from my surgery (and feeling very connected to Simon-sharing his spitting up and puking noises and proclivity for food up the nose, as well as the more serious feeling of time being marked by the flow of meds) I've been thinking a lot about your Celebration of Life tradition. In the past 12 years I have mostly thought of it as celebrating the fact that you are still alive. Celebrating the fact of life-your life-and your narrow miss with losing that life. Somehow this year's journey with Simon, and my own journey of recovery have made me think about it as a celebration of more than just the fact of life, but also as a celebration of the nature of life, and the nature of life including this crazy journey of life and death and uncertainty and unknown. It has made me think about the nature of life being like the ocean you swim in every year on your anniversary-so much bigger and wider and more powerful than we are. You can kick and scream in the ocean and she doesn't care. She'll bring you the waves she chooses, not the ones we may want. She'll dunk you under and bring you up again and it'll be both freezing cold and exhilarating all at the same time. And it will be so unknown and so unknowable-the true nature of the ocean. And our relationship to it has to be one of surrender and acceptance. Otherwise you will never catch a wave, never feel the pull of the tide on your body. You can't fight her-the peace comes from the surrender. Well what if the nature of life is also like that? Life brings us the full package, the happiness, the grief, the life and death, and it's all part of Life with a capital L. And we have to have the same relationship of surrender to it-we don't get to just pick the happy and alive-Life comes with all of it. And it is that acceptance that leads us to faith and faith to peace. I've often heard Christians describe difficulties in life as God challenging their faith, a test of faith. Even not in religious terms I think I've come to the same conclusions- that Life (with the capital L) includes it all and takes us down a path, a journey, of surrender and acceptance that leads us to faith in some way. Faith in Life. So this year when I Celebrate your Life with you I'm not just celebrating the fact that you are alive and the fact of your life, but I'll be celebrating the nature of Life and the whole package of what Life has brought this year and where that Life is taking us--into peace and faith. I love you. I'm glad that you are alive. And I'm glad for Life. Love-Sonya

Life truly does give back--many times over--what you put into it. Never forget how amazing you are and have faith that the power within you can create the life you want.-----Maya Angelou