I took this photo while hiking with some friends at the Temescal Canyon Road National Park in the Santa Monica Mountains in Southern California. This is an interesting image for me.
This week I suffered an acute Asthma attack coupled with an ongoing Bronchitis condition. I guess after years of built up allergies my lungs reached a boiling point and I found myself struggling to take a breath. I was literally in tears because of what I was going through and also because it brought back a flood of unhappy memories. I don't think I've written in great detail about how I lost my mother, but many years ago I watched my mom take her last breath after suffering from lung cancer. Having not smoked a day in her life, it was a mystery to all of how she got it. While going through her radiation and chemo (knowing that the Doctors had already told her and us that it was an inoperable condition and she only had a few months to live) she never once complained and never once blamed god or anything. She was truly (and still is) an amazing person. I don't know how she did it. My condition was not thankfully fatal, but the experience of not being able to take a breath was so scary and it pains me to no end to remember what she went through and how much she suffered.
And for the record, I'm feeling better today after they gave me some treatments and some medications and I think I am over the worst part and heading toward full recovery.
I remembered this photo I took and some thoughts I had when seeing it for the first time and so after this recent health experience, I now felt compelled to finally write this story.
As one walks their own path in life, we do encounter many things. As this one person said in a show I saw once in Vegas (yes Vegas), life is like a delicate string. There are moments during your journey where parts in your string will break, but in the end and with our faith these breaks somehow finds its way to mend and can become whole again.
When I look at this photo, I can see the beautiful blue sky, but the trees and branches are blocking my view. But persevering and pushing through on the trail, we found daylight and an unobstructed view of the clear blue sky. My mother found her blue sky too ....
I wanted to thank Annie (
Churches in Venice) for the idea to create a meme based upon the last entry I did about how I thought some photos are worth a thousand words. I thought it was a very cool idea. I have my Photo of the Month, My Travel Thoughts and my Music blog themes and I think My Photo Stories will be a beautiful blog addition. I had to change the name because the title was frankly someone else's quote and it was a tad too long for my theme logo. he, he. It is not a weekly meme for now like the PhotoHunt weekly meme I currently love participating in which was created by TnChick, but it might become one in the future. :) I just love the creativeness of blogs and the ability to share.
