Finding Hope

Wednesday was what the trip to Cancun was all about. The process of grief is a long lonely journey. I have seen people emotionally die when their loved one was taken, and I have seen others slowly rebuild their lives, not as it was, but as it now is. As one watching the process.... My Father and Barbara, as well as others, it is always my prayer that they will find the fortitude to put one foot in front of the other and make the ones who have passed from this world to the next proud of them. They will never be forgotten, and I believe their memory lives on through every adventure, every hurdle, every victory the one still living this life conquers. That was what this trip was about. Wednesday was Barbara's birthday.... The first birthday without John... "Don't let me be sad Jac.... I don't want to be sad." As a fixer with a million opinions about a million different things, I was terrified I would fail terribly at keeping Barbara from being sad. All I could do was my silly best and hope that paradise worked its beautiful magic. We had "A couple's spa" day planned, making it perfectly clear that I had a husband at home and she was the "Birthday Girl" Not that I really cared what people thought, but I thought it would be nice if we

all had an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the celebration. We arrived at the spa to a warm wonderful welcome. The aqua area was beautiful. A young man treated us to a foot scrub. He than lead us into a sauna where we steamed for 12 minutes. Then we proceeded to a series of shower; the cold waterfall shower, the mint mist shower, the mixed jets shower, and my favorite was the ice cold bucket shower. This one was particularly fun because he let me pull the chain on Barbara's bucket which brought me much delight... Her, not so much. Then we walked through what looked liked baptismal pools, one hot, one cold. We had to walk through alternating pools three times. From there we went to the dry sauna, and from there to the ice chamber where they rubbed ice on the bottoms of our feet and palms. That's a lot of water! Finally we made it to our massages where I'm pretty sure I drooled while they worked on my back, and later I woke myself up snoring (actually more of a serene purr). They woke us up with the smell of mint and monk chimes. They wrapped us in robes, put hot rice packs around our neck and escorted us to a room I could imagine Cleopatra lounging in. There were beautiful couch/beds with chocolate covered strawberries and champagne waiting for us. It was pretty close to heaven. That was just the first half of the day. When we got to our room, a knock on the door was room service with a chocolate mouse birthday cake and more champagne. I'll leave the squeals and giggle second half of the day for another post. It is safe to say that I saw moments of sadness in Barbara's eyes at times, but more importantly I saw lots of hope in her eyes. Hope that life could be good. Hope that John would be proud, and hope that more smiles and happiness lay ahead. I saw her realize all she had to do was reach out and be willing to wrap her fingers around hope when and where she found it.