I write to process my feelings.

I post to share universal lessons that I think other’s will appreciate.

I chronicle to remember what I was feeling, thinking, and doing in extraordinary moments.

I journal to find my self-awareness and to clarify my feelings and intentions.

Though I am an extrovert, I find these moments of quiet both renewing and grounding.

In February 2014, I raced to my mother’s bedside. She was in a hospital bed installed in her sitting room, where she had been transported from a nursing home to die. I joined my sister and her daughters in sharing the work of helping to make a life’s passage. None of us had ever done this before. My sister and her daughter Erin are nurses. I have a hunch that they have been at some bedsides for this work. But it is very different when it is your own family.

Each of us brought our strengths and fears to the process. We tried our best to pull together to provide round-the-clock care, facilitate the visitors and clinicians, manage the emergencies, supervise an active three-year-old great granddaughter and source meals and medicines.

I had recently learned how to knit and brought knitting needles and beautiful yarn to teach knitting to my nieces so that we could sit quietly together at my mother’s bedside and have something to do.

After the first day, I found myself at my laptop in the early hour’s journaling. I then thought to share what was happening with family members and friends. My mother had not kept in touch by writing but did follow the lives of many people. I thought that they should know the she was dying.

This was the beginning of my ‘Family and Friends’ letter that became a fixture in the year that my mother lived with me. I always included a photo and a funny story and an update of our journey together.

Little did I know what gifts this simple act would bring to me and my mother. In my effort to share and update, I created a community that enriched my mother’s last year of life and still enriches mine today. I gained new relationships and built bridges into severed, neglected relationships. I made connections with family members that had been lost many years before when my parent’s relationship died and divorce followed.

Several months ago, I was in Colorado enjoying the beauty of the mountains and the fun of winter. I spent time with my father’s sister and her daughters, granddaughter and great grandson — some of whom I had never met and some whom I last saw when I was a preteen. My cousin found me via social media and we first reconnected face-to-face in 2012. We spent the first day catching up on all the loose ends of our lives and sharing our life journeys. It is a unique experience when you connect with someone who shares your DNA.

There is an old Swedish saying, “It is never too late to have a happy life.” I am having a happy life filled with special connections. And I am grateful for the friends and family in my life.