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The focal point

   

       Thomas Moran, a fantastic painter and my favorite, has a running theme in his art: a single focal point of light. In most of his paintings, there is a scene of crashing waves, either on themselves or a rocky crag of sorts. The waves are always dark and foreboding, and present a sense of inevitable or impending death.
       But, where the horizon meets the ocean there is always a focal point of light. I heard it once said that a good painter always puts their darkest colour next to the brightest to accentuate both. The light lends credence to the dark and vice versa. So Moran does in his art. He blends perfectly the harsh blacks, grays, and blues with the bright whites, yellows, and oranges. And he creates beauty.
       So it is in life. This week, today, two people left this earth. It seems that when we slowly gain back our ground from the few moments before that shifted our paradigm, we experience the shattering again. A week or so ago, I was with my best friend and we were talking about death. I simply said, "I hate death." Her response blew me away: "It's just beginning." And she was right. At 29, everyone that I have known or grown up with or is part of my family will die. 
       So, why do I talk about Moran and death? Because of these two souls that left the darkness of the crashing waves for the subtle pastel of the sky. They left this delirious earth for the peace of heaven. They experienced in one moment a perfect Moran painting. The dark against the light. The hopeless against the hope. The imperfect for the perfect. They became immortal like Moran.
       And as we think of them and praise them and remember all the good that happened in our lives because of them we experience a little more of the focal point of life. See, I don't think that life is about the pain or the struggle or the shit we watch about on the news. No, it is about that little glimmer of hope that we find in the small things. It is the uncomplicated joy =) It is about the focal point. That's what this life is about, not the the other. 
       I did not know these two people well, but I met them and smiled because of them...Their families are my family. And I am honored to be apart of the bigger family of which they were apart. 
       RIP: Steven Rojo
               Angie's mom

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