I didn’t want to come to Denver.
I couldn’t see past the tragedy that is my every day and decide to put it aside for one weekend. “How” I asked Jen who encouraged at first, insisted as the time got nearer, “ “can I possibly learn anything from people whose stories are not my own”.
Until.
I looked around the room and saw the walking wounded, raw in their pain and strong in their determination to rise above the fears and the doubts to be more than what they were before. Each with a story to tell.
Ah, I have found my place.
That is why.
I would sit through the speakers and the performers with tears trickling down my face and feel wonder at how well they knew my song.
I gathered with the women we met and found kindred spirits in their diversity. Beautiful, strong, women radiating with love. And they become my own. My tribe.
And I realize that the only way through my pain is to continue to gather strength from the tribe of women I have surrounding me. The ones who came in the beginning and never left, the ones that joined and became ones I couldn’t live without and the ones that will continually seek to find me so that they may pass on their wisdom.
That is the purpose. That is why I was destined to come.
I owe my gratitude to all of the woman in the courage that they showed. It was nothing short of divine.
Perhaps today is the day, I can begin the journey of loving myself as much as I love my son.
