Life is too short...

Life is too short to...
forget your colors.

I started attending a young adult grief group. Today during the first session we made beads out of clay that hardens when you put it in the oven. The directions were to pick three colors:

1) One color for yourself.
2) One color for your loved one.
3) One color for a memory or feeling you had with your loved one.

I ended up picking orange for me (just because I like orange) a deep blue for Micah (because it reminded me of a shirt he wore) and yellow for happiness (which I always felt around him!) Next I twisted the colors together and pinched and rolled off pieces until they became marble-like beads.

I like my bracelet because the simplicity seems to speak louder than any grief book I've read--and hey, I've read a lot. Although you can see each color in the bead, it would be almost impossible to separate one from another--because at that point they are so intertwined and meshed together that they become one whole entity.
In other words, when you love someone, and more so when you lose a person you love, your experiences and memories of that person become so entangled with you that they actually become a part of you. It would be impossible to just plain extract the parts of Micah out of my life, because they've become so ingrained into who I am now. Slightly cheesy, yes, but whatever, I still love it.

Later this evening after cooking the beads, I added my own touch: I sewed on a ribbon that I wore in my hair to Masquerade when Micah and I went as a German couple. I don't know if I'll actually wear my bracelet, but I'm into simple yet meaningful crafts like this these days.