Hope and Healing Project

This year I am choosing to use Inktober for multiple purposes, but the main one is to counterbalance all the sadness of this past year. We just buried another friend this week. Not covid. Those close to me have not been covid related.

• This month is also the 1st anniversary of the loss of my brother from cancer
• My best friend, Lainey, lost her mother earlier this year
• We lost my Aunt Thelma
• A teammate (my expert on my project) passed suddenly this past Spring.
• A friend just this week
• There are untold losses amongst the extended social, work, and church networks. This has been a year for Sympathy cards and condolences

While searching out images of hope and healing and things that bring me joy, I was thinking about the first prompt – Crystal. I do not own much crystal, but I know it is precious. And a good crystal dish is lovely and highly valued. But it is also easily shattered when not handled with care and reverence.

It was not a big leap to think of our hearts and how easily shattered they are. The grief, the loss, the hard things in life. So I went searching for that time in life before our pure hearts were broken and there it was. Myself and my much loved cousin enjoying Christmas before the world intruded. Before our hearts were scarred.

A time of innocence and joy. I want to tap back into that time – that heart is still there. It is time to heal.

I have been watercoloring this image before the Day 1 inking above.