A birthday gift to myself finally arrived---right on time! 🌹❤️✨️ This @talleyandtwine stunner has two special meanings for me... representing the seed planted long ago by an unforgettable woman named Ginger & the roses that seed has since produced. Ginger was like a second mom to me, mother of my best friend Josh, in middle school into high school. An impossible task, as she battled cancer, she kept me up to date of what she was facing, knowing her son would need a friend who "just knew," a friend he didn't have to explain things to. I'd call to talk to him and spend 45 minutes on the phone with her first. By the time she told him I was on the phone for him, he'd be confused since he hadn't heard the phone ring in so long. With every interaction, she planted seeds of resilience, strength, selflessness, determination, and unconditional love. Shortly after we lost Ginger, I had an assignment to write about a person, describing them as an inanimate object, and drawing a picture that represented them as that object. In my grief, I chose a stain glass window shaped like a heart. Something colorful but shattered, whose broken pieces were put back together to make something beautiful. Through my work at @kidsinthespotlight -- & what makes this #talleyandtwine piece so special -- there's this colliding of the nostalgia for who Ginger was to me with the rose-tinted possibility of the young people I'm in service to. A special group in particular, my inaugural TNL ten, who I've had the pleasure of working closely with since last September. This beautifully crafted piece will remind me the loved ones who I've lost, like Ginger, will forever be etched into my continuing story as part of the foundational stain glass unfolding with each new rose that blooms, because of the love they planted, watered, and poured into first. My TNL ten are forever part of my story because of how they've shared theirs with me, just like Ginger did. And suddenly, in a time piece, my two worlds meet in a way that's impossible otherwise.