Wow this is beautiful, the picture is amazing and the poem is even better

Great picture! Love it.

Most Loving Carol!

Outstanding work. God bless.

Oh wow - I love this so much! Excellent work Carol!

Carol, I was very moved by this moving dedi to your soulmate. I'm so sorry for your loss, and admire the way you have found things to love in this world.

superb image and touching dedi Carol!!

Stunning artwork! Wonderful tribute!!

Carol, what a stunning piece of work. A beautiful dedi & glad you are coping ok. xxxx

This is amazing.. great work.. love it!!

Beautiful as always Hugs Susan

a blessing to us you are Carol...LJ awaiting on the river of dreams for you lv to your heart.. sincerely linda

A beautiful and tender image. A wonderful tribute to your soul mate.

That's love for you! lovely picture.

SO precious!! Just perfection and I so feel for you, dear lady! Big Hugs!

Carol....nice to read that you find a way now to deal with your lost....grief is a very bad "sickness" if you know what I mean.....it is 1.5 year ago that I lost my dad....he is daily in my thought....I miss him...especially now in the hard time I live in right now....I wish I could ask him for advice and help.....his wise words etc etc....most people say......don't grief.....think on the most beautiful moments.....sure we all do that....but it is easier said than done....so I do understand what you have felt all those years.....about this images.....it express real love.....I am happy to read that you love my work...I have share my pictures for several years already with you......and it is always a joy to look at what you have made of them.....xxxx

very lovely image!

Beautiful work and thoughts. My father died 20 years ago this week and, to our amazement and wonder, my mother both survived and carved out a life for herself. It was an uphill journey for several years, but she too learned to do thing on her own (or who to call to take care of it) and made friends of her own. I am glad you are finding your way through this dreadful time.

Very touching picture & words!

You're breaking my heart but that's a good thing. There's so much appreciation of life in your work and this one is the sweetest.

It's sooo adorable !

I wanted to comment on this before I step away. (I'll be back, if not tonight, then in the next day or two, because there's just too much to comment on before I step away again.) I chose this for the very obvious reason: It's for LJ, and it's about the journey you've been on, and the grief and loss mixed with great love and light. I didn't want to stop, now, without commenting on this. Your words above are deep and honest, open and vulnerable. I've always seen loss as a huge rupture, and then a gift. The gift part is hard to describe (as I'm sure you know); and one doesn't want to betray the loss by speaking of it as beautiful or gifted. But it bestows something on us, which I still can't fully describe. I just know it's there. And the person's presence, as well as what's left with us from their passing, is a gift. It just keeps on whispering and hinting and pointing and revealing. I sometimes felt that the passed in my life have quietly pointed in a direction or other. I have no proof, I just felt it. And then sometimes they reached out from the trees or the clouds. I don't know if I've talked about this, so bear with me if I have: The famous musical "Fiddler on the Roof" came from a very old set of legends, Jewish but with roots across Eastern Europe: That of the itinerant musician, living in the mists, resting the trees and rooftops, sometimes for ages, and playing music from the 'other world' to guide the living, and whisper and cajole and reveal many mysteries. The 'music' part seems fitting because of LJ's life. The musical I mentioned deals with the actual fiddler only to a degree; but the tales that it come from go back centuries, and have such deep mystical presence in them. I've always felt that the fiddler or singer in the trees was the soul of our passed, playing even if they never played in life. And that their music was more real than the sounds around me, even while it was so elusive; and it was haunting and so very beautiful...I don't know if any of this touches your experience, but I've heard it in your words, quietly---that elusive singer in the trees---I've just felt it, however it manifests itself to you personally. I've felt that mystical presence in your words through this long painful yet gifted journey. I think that's what I mean by 'gift': It's always there no matter what else. And maybe that's part of what you heard as you've done more and more for yourself (to paraphrase your words) in LJ's absence. In any case, I hear gift in your words. And so I came here to acknowledge that. The painting of course is another of your animal paintings, lush, beautiful, and spiritual. ("Lush" is cognate with "luscious," a beautiful connection.) But you have the two kissing, and the male seems to be protecting and reaching out to the female---and by "protecting," I don't mean in the chauvinistic sense; but in the sense of love, of maybe LJ protecting your journey from a higher, deeper place. That kind of protecting. There's a loving protected connection there...And his dark hairs make a wonderful "chord" that seems to hold the whole piece together. (Hard to explain, but right, to my eyes.) And you have them in these beautifully articulated grasses which---like a number of your grounds---seem to flow into a limitless place. More of that 'root' I see in your work. It's on that that they stand. Then there's a big planet above them, a world. The moon maybe? But it can be any world, really. Like it came out to embrace them, making a cameo for them. I think worlds do that in the inner realm. And you've melded that world into flowing strokes at the ground level, so it can meet the ground and become one with it. A beautiful piece for the anniversary of LJ's passing. I wish you much light as you move forward, a bow of sympathy for what you lost, and much gratitude for giving us so much light in its wake. That way, you give the 'gift' to others...Beautiful on all accounts. I'll be back again, soon. Wonderful to be here, as always...