As the holiday season approaches, she thinks of all those who came before. Christmas is supposed to be a time of gratitude and thanks, a time for reflection. So many times these days, it is about financial concerns and presents and partying, what you can purchase as the latest gadget or fashion.
She thought about those who were no longer here with her. She was now alone. So what can she reflect on?
Reflect on the lessons she has learned since they passed, reflect on how far she has come on her own journey. So what has she learned?

They left without her having the chance to say goodbye. Just gone. As they all had done. It left a hole inside even she was not aware of. So she looked outside herself for answers, solutions and found nothing to fulfill or take that sense of loss away. As she climbed into that place she had always gone to when things became to emotionally overwhelming for her to deal with, she thought she caught glimpse of something....a feeling....a sense of something she had not felt for such a long time.
She tried to put a name on it but found there were no words in this human language. She could only try to vocalise how she felt. As the darkness she once knew tried to encompass her once more, she could feel a 'pull', something was taking hold of her hand, pulling her away from the darkness.
She wanted to go to that dark place as it was comfort and safe and she didn't have to explain or react or mix with others. She just had to stick to the routine.
And yet this feeling, this pull, was familiar. It was Light. It was Love.
Friends, people she was familiar with, their love and their honesty and friendship, pulled her back towards life.
She was in a place in the light, having to look at where she is now at, naked and exposed. She had to acknowledge she was hurt and angry that she didn't get to say goodbye, hurt and angry she was once again alone. But in all that pain and anger, the Universe in its wisdom had seen fit to increase her empathy, her sense of love. Maybe this was to be the reminder she needed. Maybe this was to allow her recognise those that loved her and still do. Maybe it was to allow her to still feel those had not really left her, but were still with her in her heart.
So why was she angry and hurt? Because she did not have closure? Possibly.
Maybe because she hadn't realised that she was the one with the strength to carry on and grow where they did not. Maybe because their journey for this moment had finished and they could help her from that other place.
So what can she do? Find that inner strength she had always had to continue, and continue to grow and learn. To show them they had contributed to her growth. To be aware although they were physically gone, they were always with her as they were part of her.
It is ok to miss them and to cry, this is normal and healthy. It is ok to acknowledge she hates being alone at times. It is ok because the Universe has given her other opportunities to love and be loved. And now she has to learn that this too may change but it never really changes. Love just is. It never dies. It is always in our hearts and always part of us.
She has had a love that stories are written about and songs are sung about. She has known all this and so in this, she finally realises, instead of being alone, she has been blessed more than she could possibly understand at that time of loss, for she has known the greatest kind of love of all.

L. Carroll 2011