The Viewfinder

A bit ago I won a contest on Darrah Parker's blog and was honored to select a photo from her etsy shop. Darrah is a Seattle-based portrait, family, and lifestyle photographer whose blog and personal journey I have followed for quite a while. I enjoy all of Darrah's photographs, and love this photo in particular.

To me, it looks like one of those old-timey telescopes that are weathered and used to see things far in the distance. I love the colors. But it means more to me than that. It is a reminder that we all see things through a viewfinder--a lens that is uniquely our own which we use to see things to bring them into our world. Our viewfinder is the story we tell about what we see. There is always a story.

I promised Darrah I'd post about the photo, and in the interim I lost Chani. The stories I told about Chani to myself, the actual fact of her passing, even the viewfinder through which I saw her and how she truly was--all of this made the photo even more timely and precious to me. So I wanted to share this with you now.

Also in the interim, Darrah lost her beloved cat Izzy and wrote about it in a very touching way here.

For more information about Darrah, see her web site.

~Photo by Darrah Parker

In Seattle for a Seminar

So I'm glad to be back to blogging on a regular basis, even though it is under such sad circumstances and some pictures here. I am thinking that it's the last thing that Chani will help me with.

I wanted to tell everyone that I'm in Seattle for a wellness seminar that I'll write more about later. I'll be here four days and it's very physical. I'm quite a homebody so this is a change, but worth it for better health.

But I just wanted to say hello to all and to wish each of you a good weekend.

It's weird that the fastest, easiest way to get a quick snapshot in here of the Space Needle from my room was to take a picture with my phone, upload it to Twitter, download it to my hard drive, and upload it to Blogger. Up and down and up. About three minutes.

Love and blessings to each and every one of you.

Pictures of Chani

Some of Chani's friends don't have pictures of her, so I wanted to include these:

This is a picture of Chani at age 25 (above). Below is a picture of Chani that is pretty recent:





And here is the last picture taken of Chani, after she got a birthday haircut. She was 58:

RIP my dear Chani,

January 26th, 1952 to March 23, 2010

Chani

Hey, everyone, I've been slow to return to blogging after my vacation.

I have some hard news today. My BFF, Chani from Finding My Way Home passed away while I was on vacation. At first (actually until today) I'd thought that she'd just cut off contact with me, mainly because this very thing had happened to me before with friendships with women. I'd felt intense rejection from not being able to get hold of her--I assumed she was ignoring me and had rejected me for some unknown reason--for exactly one month today. I'd talked to her for seven hours during the first two weeks of my vacation---then nothing. I personalized it and felt sorry for myself. It turns out it was just a drama created completely in my head. I could not---would not---conceive that something terrible had happened to her. It had.

It ended up that Chani passed away about three weeks ago, at a crescendo in her life, a BE BRAVE time, right before she moved and started a whole new phase of her life. She died suddenly and unexpectedly.

Chani was better than a BFF, really. She was right beside me at the biggest crisis of my life, 16 months ago, and ever since. She was in many ways my North Star, probably too important to me. I loved her so much.

My biggest regret is that I never told Chani what she meant to me. I hope she knew.

My message to you is that if there is anyone who is important to you, anyone whom you love, LET THEM KNOW. Don't wait. Chani was a good friend. There was no one like Chani, and there will never again be anyone like her.  This is true for everyone you love. Tell them how you feel. Love them today. It may be their last day ever.

So I'm back to blogging, for a sad but important reason.