The Forest Fire - A Year Later

Day 345 – In the middle of the day I started feeling better, my daughter also, so it was, indeed, a 24 hours virus. Even though I am not back to my strength yet, I am so much better than I was yesterday, and I am planning to finish this blog and again go for a long night sleep. Not sure I will be up for a party right now, but I am happy to be out of the woods. This afternoon we drove to show my son the memorial that was erected for the fallen heroes of the fire from last year, I talked about that one in one of my first blog entries. It is amazing to see how much came back already, how green is the area and how every burned tree that was cut down have new seedlings all around it. If you don’t know how the area looked before and how pretty was that natural forest, you can’t see that something is seriously missing there. There are, of course, wide areas of burnt trees and a whole side of the mountain that is still blackened but life is gushing in and coming in full force. It is so sad to come to this memorial and to see the devastation all around and in the same time it bring some hope – there is a new beginning and from that disaster new life and new hopes will start. This is how we have to look at all of our life shifts and turns – not everything was planned, not everything we get our way is something we would choose to have, but good or bad it is up to us to make it something meaningful and grow and get stronger from it. Be a better person for having encountered this obstacle, this setback. I sure would love to be able to treat all the events in my life this way. it is challenging, but I think I really gain a lot every time I manage to do so.
  
I am thankful for a difficult but very inspiring visit today. I am thankful we got to share the story with my son and revisit it all a year later. I am thankful to see that this amazing forest is starting to renew itself; but I am so sad for the loss of so many innocent life during that horrific fire.