Olympic skater

I was so moved by this. I wept as I read this article. My heart aches for this young woman.
"Not 48 hours after she lost her mother, Therese, to a heart attack, Rochette refused to let grief derail their shared dream of skating here. With her father, Normand, overcome with emotion as he watched from the stands, Rochette sailed through a courageous program, cleanly landing all of her jumps and leaving the skating world in awe of her strength."

More from The Shell Seekers

Nobody had ever known. Somehow, this seemed saddest of all. You should have talked about him, Mumma. Told me. I would have understood. I would have wanted to listen. She discovered, to her surprise, that her eyes had filled with tears. These now spilled over and ran down her cheeks, and the sensation was strange and unfamiliar, as though it were happening to another person and not herself. And yet she wept for her mother. I want you to be here. Now. I want to talk to you. I need you.
. . .
She was a schoolgirl again, bursting in through the door of that huge basement room in Oakley Street, calling "Mumma!" and knowing that, from somewhere, Mumma would answer. And as she wept, that armour which she had gathered about herself--that hard shell of self-control--broke up and disintegrated. Without that armour she could not have got through the first days of living in a cold world where Mumma no longer existed. Now, released by grief, she was human again and once more herself.

What I've been reading

I re-read The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher recently. I don't know how many times I've read that book since a friend loaned a copy to me back in, what 1987/88? I stayed up all night to read it. And it has been sooo good each time. But, now, it had been several years since I re-read it.
So, a quote or two.
"There are snowdrops coming out in the garden, and spring is on the way. I shall see it. Watch the yearly miracle, and feel the sun grow warmer as the weeks slip by. And because I am alive, I shall watch it all happen and be part of that miracle."
"Living now, had become not simple existence that one took for granted, but a bonus, a gift, with every day that lay ahead an experience to be savored. Time did not last forever. I shall not waste a single moment, she promised herself. She had never felt so strong, so optimistic. As though she was young once more, starting out, and something marvellous was just about to happen."

Blogging

Well, I'll give it another try. I have been feeling the black cloud lifting. I'm not sure if this is temporary. We are not to the "year" point yet. April 6 will be one year since Mama was admitted to the hospital. May 29 is the day she was released. We'll see how the spring goes.