when life gives you lemons…

My fascination with the journeys that ordinary folk take makes me realize that many of us have had our share of life giving us lemons. Weather it be from a family loss, a job gone wrong or a childhood trauma. Most of us have received our fair share of lemons. I am always so amazed how we all seem to turn these into lemonade. Perhaps not immediately as childhood events that have scarred us as adults may take decades to learn to cope and navigate through. Yet, somehow we seem to take a deep breathe and pull ourselves out of the negative impacts, planing seeds to grow our own lemon trees in order to try to right what once went so wrong. A friend who had a hostile father, promised she would never find a man who did not hold her on a pedestal and found a saint of a husband who was her whole life. A women who lost her parents at a young age put her energy into her own children and let them know everyday how cherished life is, taking them on adventures that would give them rare family time that most families never see. A young couple who lost a child volunteering their life to helping other families in the same situation by starting a organization that prevents childhood accidents and supporting surviving families. These tragedies and personal stories that have personally come to change how I see people, have shopped who we are. Sharing the stories even the hardest ones, is the beginning of healing and providing knowledge to others so that hopefully the fate of future generations has less hardships in these areas. I have lost sleep, cried deep drowning tears and have known the pain of these amazing families. To have their stories and to be able to somehow preserve them in a way that is sensitive and in love has been such an honor. To make lemonade out of lemons. This is the task I see before me in many of my family books, videos and trees planted. It is the seed in those lemons we must keep close and plant for new hope and life to be created. Kara Hume