LIVE FOR TODAY

Every once in awhile I am touched by an event that stays with me for days - sometimes they are good news stories and sometimes bad. I woke up this morning and read in the paper that Hollywood actress Natasha Richardson had died from a fall on a bunnyhill at a ski resort in Quebec. I, like most parents, am always touched by stories that leave families in loss of a parent. Natasha Richardson is the wife of famed actor Liam Neeson, and the mother of two boys aged 12 and 13. The loss of a parent at anytime in your life has such an impact on the family. I had two friends who lost parents in high school, and the impact on their lives was awesome. As a person who suffers from health anxiety, and as a daughter who almost lost her 84 year old father this year, I really have to take these negative events and try to work through them. A therapist once told me in times of despair, seek out the things that make you smile. And although challenging, try to live in the moment for as long as you can to get through the sadness. I pass this on to the family of Natasha Richardson, the families of the helicopter victims in Newfoundland and anyone who today mourns the loss of loved one whether it happened yesterday, a year ago and 25 years ago. So what did I do this morning when I got up, crept in and smelled the scent of 7 year old, woke my kids up, tickled them, bathed them, talked to them, and planned our day. Screw work, laundry, and me time, today we are going to do crafts, because we really only have today! That is what Eckhart Tolle (author of A New Earth, The Power of Now") tells us, and today I will take his advice. What other advice do you have to get through loss?